


A Shift In Priority

by gala_apples



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Children, Getting Back Together, M/M, Parenthood, Perceived Betrayal, Post-Break Up, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 04:52:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4508514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six months after Michael MLP Jones has gone missing, Fake AH has split up. Most of the crew and associates presume him dead, or worse, a traitor, but Ray can’t stop searching. What he finds will change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Shift In Priority

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains a GTA standard level of violence and theft, including threats between the six mains (no one murders or permanently disfigures anyone). It also has a GTA level of respect for the common man; there are a few ableistic slurs and a bit of slut shaming. Lastly, this fic features two characters who use drugs as a coping mechanism.

They broke up after Michael left. 

It would have been different had it been Ryan, or Gavin. Ray loves them both -present tense, not past- but nasty truths are still truths, and it’s true. The crew could have managed without Gavino, the electronics wunderkind, without Vagabond, the skull-faced man so terrifying that half the time weapons weren’t necessary to get the job done. Still used, yes, but not needed. Their relationship could have worked without an amoral, selfish asshole or an occasionally dissociative, distant man. But it being Michael made the group dynamic impossible. Personally and professionally. And not knowing how or why he went away made it all worse.

Despite no longer having a crew, Ray’s still doing jobs. He gets why that makes him a betrayer in Gavin’s eyes. He gets why it doesn’t in Geoff’s. He feels bad that the fundamental difference in opinion has driven the pair apart. The few times realism got to Ray and he imagined all of them breaking up and everyone going their own way he still always imagined Geoff and Gavin together.

It’s not that sniping is cathartic, although it is. It’s not that he needs to pay his bills, although it’s true that somewhere along the line they all stopped dividing the haul after a heist and the group fortune can only be accessed if three people sign at once. It’s that Ray can’t move on. To Gavin Michael’s disappearance is a history of domino betrayals. To Ryan Michael’s sudden departure is the canary chirp to find better ground. To Geoff it’s the sad reality of life in Los Santos. But to Ray it hasn’t ended. Every morning he wakes up and Michael isn’t there and because Michael’s not neither are Jack or Geoff or Gavin or Ryan. Each morning the silence makes Ray nauseous. Literally sick to his stomach. He hasn’t had breakfast in six months. 

Ryan’s moved on, Jack’s gone legit, Gavin’s drinking and whoring his life away. As for himself, Ray’s taking job after job but only from a select bunch of employers. Not the highest paying, or the ones with enemies who truly deserve death. Ray doesn’t have time for either of those value sets. Ray takes jobs from employers who’ve heard rumours about Michael. It’s the same every time. Ray gets the information, gets the order, then proceeds to line up the shot, murder from a distance, and run down the lead, whether it’s a shallow grave or a penthouse suite in New York. Only once he gets back does he get his fee. So far the ‘half off for accurate information’ hasn’t gotten him anything, but Ray can’t stop trying.

This one is a bad lead. Ray treats each rumour as viable. He does so because he needs to. He’ll stop shooting, stop moving, stop _breathing_ if he doesn’t. But the purely rational part of Ray that is normally in charge of calculating the best angle for a bullet through the eye knows it’s a bad lead. Crew man in some Vegas crew? Ridiculous. Michael doesn’t even like gambling. But Ray shoots the woman, watches to make sure she doesn’t get up, and flies out.

And there he fucking is.

Ray watches from the rooftop across the street as four guys in masks rob a diner, exactly where Ardis Calloway said the Panto Crew would be. They’re not amazingly artistic masks, nothing like the kind that Griffon wizards together with fibreglass and fur and paint. Ray used to suspect Geoff of adding precious minutes into any heist plan just to guarantee getting on the news and getting her work viewed by thousands. No, these guys are wearing pathetic flimsy latex masks, the kind you could get for five bucks at a thrift store at Halloween. Call him a snob, but it’s their first strike in his book. Second being not doing anything with the customers. Panto doesn’t shoot them all _or_ let them run out the front door to cause chaos when the cops need to help each of the civilians before getting to the matter inside. Lazy or stupid, either way it’s a crime against proper heisting.

Third? Third strike and they are fucking out, Ray will take them all out? The man deepest into the diner, right against the counter. Ray’s too far away to hear his bat out of hell roar to hurry the hell up, hand it over, but he’s wearing the jacket. Ray would know that patched leather monstrosity from a football field away. So would half of Los Santos for that matter. Police sketch artists probably have the damn thing memorized, same as Jack’s tacky blouse or Ray’s own pink guns.

Ray is tempted to glack the assholes right now. He brought a gun as a service to fellow gentlemen in the Life, in case the pigs arrived too quickly. You don’t need to know someone’s name to bip a cop for them. But fuck the cops, Ray wants to spend his bullets on Panto. He’s got dozens and he could use them all. Shred the motherfuckers from stem to stern. How dare they? How. Fucking. Dare They. 

There’s only one reason Ray keeps the trigger unpulled. He’s not sure what this sorry excuse for a crew’s escape plan is. Maybe Michael needs them to get away. Even as full of fury as Ray is, he can’t be Michael’s cause of death.

At least not via cops. 

Because the thing is? Michael is here. He’s here, in Vegas. He’s had six months to twist his way out of WitSec, or kill the person that sent him running, or develop a FAHC outpost without Geoff’s approval and then use his success to convince the boss to not dismantle it. Michael’s had six fucking months to figure out a way to contact them. And he hasn’t. And that only leaves a few possibilities, and most of those mean a shot to the temple is well deserved. So no, Ray won’t let the pigs take down MLP, won’t let them get that shining victory, won’t let the details of MLP’s more glorious heists get removed from FBI’s Most Wanted list. But that doesn’t mean Michael shouldn’t die for crimes of betrayal.

Ray follows Panto Crew to their safehouse. Or maybe it’s just someone’s home. Ray genuinely hopes so. If the crew is dumb enough to all take the same route to the same place without taking their masks off without a single one of them spotting a tail, it’s totally plausible they’d count their newly appropriated funds in their own fucking living room. That’s the kind of mistake that makes it exceedingly easy to get tripped up. Which, honestly, is the only thing that could possibly make Ray smile right now. They sincerely deserve to some day be followed by someone more law or business driven than himself. Ray only holds a personal grudge. That’s not much compared to arresting them or taking their product. Not unless he actually does something about the hatred surging through him. Panto Crew has earned it, if not for being stupid than for taking his crew and therefore his life from him.

He only has a rifle on him. Not great for rapidfire shooting, a driveby isn’t going to be possible. But he’s got a lighter and someone on the block should have a canister of gas in their garage, meant for a lawn mower or an emergency. As long as he barricaded a few doors everything would work out. Except Ray doesn’t think he can do that to Michael. He’s seen people burn alive before, he doesn’t want Michael’s face transposed to those charred bodies. He’s not sure he can kill Michael at all. Even though Ray hates him for this decision and the six months of fall out it created, he loves him for everything before that. They were boyfriends and before that crew, and before that online friends. Gavin could do it. Geoff could do it. But Ray can’t throw that much away in one bloody action. And it’s not like Michael’s a true traitor. When he went missing the cops didn’t suddenly know where Fake AH stash houses were. Lower gangs didn’t suddenly have leverage against them. However Michael got out, he didn’t sell information. Probably. So he’s an abandoner, not a backstabber. Which is good. Ryan slit Aaron’s throat for suggesting the second. Ray’d feel bad if the guy turned out to be right.

He’s idled here for too long. Even if Michael’s new crew is too stupid and arrogant to notice, nice suburban street like this means there’s probably a neighbourhood watch. His license plate might already be recorded, for all the good that’ll do with a stolen car. Still, Ray knows best practices and this isn’t them. Gavin would be screaming at him to move already, though he’d probably call it hauling krev. Ray needs to either bust inside and get the job done, or leave.

He leaves. Not just the neighbourhood, but Vegas completely. There’s no reason to stay. It’s not like blackjack or a burlesque show will be sufficiently distracting from knowing Michael’s alive, just with no interest in his former crew. He doesn’t have to wait for a specific flight to get out of town. Ray never books a round trip when he plans yet another futile expedition to find Michael. He’s never sure how long it’ll take to convince the irrational part of his brain that he’s exhausted the lead. Trying to make that kind of emotional decision on a premade schedule would be near impossible. This time Ray knows for a fact he’s exhausted the lead because he’s actually fucking found Michael. The irrational part of his brain _still_ doesn’t want to leave. Turns out at the core of him, he’s a complete fucking schmuck. 

The airport is busy. Of course it is, he’s at fuckin’ McCarran International at four in the afternoon. He has to wait a few hours for the next flight, but it’s not as bad as he’s had it in the past, in tiny little three plane airports. At least here he can sit and play his DS and eat a stupidly expensive burger from one of the fifty airport restaurants.

The thing that makes him blankly stare at his spicy fries while they get cold is that there’s no relief. Ray was banking on one day having it, in one way or another. He’d find out the truth of Michael’s disappearance and relief would flow into him like a barrel under a waterfall. So fucking much for that. Closure is bullshit is the lesson of the day. 

Because Ray lives a different life than everyone else in this airport, he doesn’t need to hang around after he gets off the plane. Ray’s luggage is generic and utterly disposable. He only checks it so no one looks at him suspiciously for every flight being sudden or even gambling on stand-by. The moment he deplanes he heads directly for the parking lot. Long term parking is basically a feast of vehicles to choose from, and despite claims of safety, essentially as unmonitored as the average Walmart parking lot. Ray should know, he steals one to drive home every time he travels. This time he goes with a red Hummer. He’s in an intimidate the pedestrians mood.

The first thing Ray does after parking a few blocks away and jogging in is toss his keys to the counter and prepare a bong. He needs a few rips to re-fucking-center himself, get his head on straight. With a few hours to mull it over suddenly his choices aren’t so clear. He should have stayed in Vegas longer. He’s a sniper, he needs time to think and analyse before making a split second shot. 

Ray puts his thumb over the hole and sucks in like Kirby until the chamber is full of bubbled up water and smoke. He inhales, holds, and exhales before drooping on the couch. The bowl’s not quite cashed but he’s not in a financial situation where he needs to worry about wastage. Although he will have to tell Russo he only has to pay half the fee, as per prior agreement. Who in the fuck would have figured how awful those words’d be to say? 

It’s half indica soaked laziness and half heartsick exhaustion that has Ray slumping to his side and swinging his feet onto the couch. The micro suede is soft on his cheek. It gets better still when he curls his legs up until his heels are nearly touching thigh and grabs a throw pillow. Everything is horrible and draining and he wishes someone could tell him what to do and someone else could pet his hair and someone else could suck his dick. It’s difficult to go from multiple personalities helping in their own way to nothing, being alone. He woke up today and Michael wasn’t there, and Geoff and Gavin and Jack and Ryan weren’t there, and now he has to think about, really _think_ about how they’re all probably waking up with gorgeous men and women because they’ve all moved on. 

Ray thinks about it for a long time, halfway between awake and asleep, weed taking the razor edge off it a bit. It’s somewhat later when he comes to his conclusion. Namely, screw them. All of them. Ray’s done being the only one to feel like shit. The rest of his ex crew have found a false peace, and sucks for them that he’s going to blow it all to smithereens to make it a little more fair.

He sits up. It’s harder than it sounds, anger still not quite overtaking the depression yet. But he struggles upright, and once he is his haphazardly thrown cell is close enough to reach. A few flicks of the thumb and Ray’s sending out his texts. It’s been half a year and it still seems weird that group text is four, not five. 

**Come to my condo, ASAP**. 

Jack replies in a matter of minutes. **How ASAP?**.

A part of Ray wants to ask Jack if she knows what the hell the letters stand for. ASAP tends to mean fuckin’ ASAP, for fucksakes. It’s not a good hill to die on though. Not to mention that Ray’s generally the least salty of their crew. Ex crew. Not expecting bitchery means she won’t take it as lightly as she would from, say, Geoff.

 **How about we all meet on Friday?** Nothing drastic will happen in two days. Most crews have a cooling off period before stating their next job. Michael shouldn’t get himself blown up, shot, or arrested before they descend on him.

 **I’ll be there** she promises.

No one else texts him back.

***

When Ray walks out of the bathroom Ryan is in his kitchen. More specifically Ryan’s rearranging his knives. Ray bought one of those magnetized hanging racks the last time he attempted any sort of domestic skill acquisition, along with a hanging pot rack and a juicer. Half the guys thought it was too weird to use, dedicated spots in a butcher’s block made way more sense than magically floating cutlery. The knives ended up everywhere, and Ray didn’t bother to learn how to cook anyway. Sometimes Ryan’s as particular as Michael is about stuff, sometimes not. They’ve been apart too long, Ray can’t remember his stance on this.

“You’re early.” Not that that’s particularly odd. Yeah Ryan was the first to leave -not counting Michael- but it was a business move. He still cares, as much as the vast majority would deny the man capable of empathy. If Ray has problems with a job Ryan’ll provide backup. What will be interesting is who’ll be the last. Gavin hates him but Jack’s a long haul trucker. As far as Ray knows she hasn’t looked at a gun in five months. She could be driving back from Alaska right now.

“Came when my last job cleaned up.”

“Oh yeah? Anything interesting?” Ryan probably means it literally. There might still be instruments of destruction in his trunk. Maybe a bone splinter covered shovel, or an airtight container of lime. Ray said he needed a meeting, and Ryan came as soon as he could. He can’t ask for more of an ASAP than twelve hours later. Way to make a guy feel all warm and fuzzy inside, apart from the diamond hard cherry pit of fury and despair. 

Ray subtly leads his skull faced ex away from the makeshift weaponry by exiting the kitchen as he’s talking and not changing his volume. Either Ryan falls for it or he doesn’t mind being manipulated. With Vagabond you never know. Sometimes he appreciates the skills of others. Sometimes the first time you figure out you’ve pissed him off is when he’s chopping your hand off. Ray’s seen it in the gaping flesh.

“Anyway, what’s going on?”

“Nothing that won’t keep ‘til everyone’s here,” Ray lies. It’s better this way. If he tells Ryan now there’s a fifty-fifty chance that he won’t want to wait for everyone else. And if it goes that way it’s about ninety nine percent that Ryan will take off without him should Ray try to make him wait. The entire point of yesterday’s text was to make everyone deal with Michael’s existence as a group.

Ryan nods, once. Then he bears Ray down to the stairs. It’s a sudden change in situation, except for how it’s not. This always happens with Ryan. If not the stairs, then some other location. Always somewhere uncomfortable, somewhere immediately convenient. Concrete pillars of parking garages, chain link fences with razor wire tops, dusty corners of abandoned warehouses. It’s the only way they know how to deal with resparking their connection. Being in sync and then breaking apart hurts, so why shouldn’t it _hurt_?

Each right angled edge is sharp on his back, but Ray kneels on asphalt roofs worn away to tar paper for a living. He can handle pain for pleasure. It’s worth it to have Ryan on top of him again, body to body, face to face. Not a lot of lip fits through the mouth of the mask but Ray can appreciate the leather against his cheek just as much. It’s a kiss in it’s own way.

When Ryan reaches for his belt Ray accepts the directive easily. It’d be difficult to return the favour the way he’s laid out, but Ryan figures that out himself and pushes his own jeans down. Ray shoves his feet against the stair and uses the firm surface as leverage to buck up against Ryan. That first move is all it takes Ryan to start a jerky rhythm on top of him. 

Ray keeps his legs taut. They’re already in the best splayed position for contact. Otherwise he lets Ryan direct all the action, manhandle him how he wants. Ray’s a sniper, he’s used to awkward positions as a necessity. And Ryan’s the enforcer, he knows what any movement to any square inch of the body does to the recipient. When it was all six of them in a bed he could perform miracles with a bit of directing. 

The steps dig into his neck and back and legs and the pressure rises with each thrust of Ryan’s but Ray’s so into it. He’s so fucking into it. He’s missed Ryan as much as he’s missed everyone else, despite Ryan being the one he still occasionally sees. If he’s got deep muscle bruises by the time this is over, so be it. It’s the same way Ray feels every time they meet with the knowledge that in a few days they’ll be parting again. He wants the polkadot scratches of gravel embedded in his chest, the deep gouge of cut chain link wire, the burn of a hot muzzle of a cooling gun pressed into his side. Leaving lines of purple black bruising running down the back of him today means Ray’ll have a reminder of it happening once Vagabond and Brownman have split ways for individual jobs. 

Ray clenches down as his release gets closer, pure animal lust overcoming the gratitude of discomfort. That’s when Ryan gets off him and onto his feet.

“Whaaa? No,” Ray protests.

“Get up.”

“Why?” Ray can’t think of a good reason. He was almost there. And it’s not like Ryan wasn’t into the rough sex. He’s erect as hell between the flaps of his zipper.

“Because I’m going to fuck you against the wall until all your frames break.”

Ray stands up as fast as he can with socks on hardwood. He wouldn’t mind a shard or two of glass embedded in his shoulders if Ryan and eventual orgasms are the cause. And eventual is probably the word. Ryan seems to be in a mood and Ray’s down with it, as always, but it’ll no doubt take all day.

***

Jack arrives early Friday morning, massive duffle hung over her shoulder. Like driving through the night, I have lost all concept of daylight vs starlight early. It’s kind of painful, especially considering he and Ryan haven’t really slept much.

She looks good. She’s wearing a floral monstrosity and lipstick that’s too orange against her complexion, but Ray’s long since been incepted into loving that, just like he loves Ryan’s leather skull and Gavin’s huge fuckin’ nose. Ray wants to make out with her, smear that peach wax all over his lips. Ray wants to hug her, and fuck her, and hell, even have her sweet capable hand up his ass like that one time after the Brockford heist.

But Jack’s not Ryan. He and her don’t have the same relationship he has with Ryan, and while great thoughts are great thoughts, Ray finds himself not taking a single step towards her. He can’t fuck or get fucked by her, desperation soaking into their abraded skin, and then separate for months at a time, or longer. Not with Jack.

If he speaks first, he’s going to say something retarded, like “hey”, and she’ll have to reply. It might lead to small talk. Ray’d literally rather cut his tongue out. So instead he wanders into the kitchen to find the biggest mugs he can for coffee. Seeing Jack has given Ray a wind, a false sense of energy -Ryan too, if Ray’s judging his posture correctly- but there’s no telling how long that will last. There’s a battle in conversation format in their future, and they need to be coherent for it. Caffeine by the litre should be enough to keep them awake. If Jack starts crashing out or he or Ryan lose their second wind he can always track down some coke. It’s not like they don’t know fifty people with product. 

Both his exes follow him into the shiny, rarely used room. The coffee maker’s already on, thanks to his and Ryan’s 4am dinner/breakfast/snack/whatever of coffee and a package of cookies each. Technically he should turn it off between uses, but if you’re walking that side of the instruction manual he should also be storing his guns without bullets in them. Life fuckin’ happens.

“What’s going on?” Jack asks Ryan, not him. Ryan shrugs, so she turns to face Ray. “I assume you’re waiting for everyone then?”

“Rather not go over it four times.” Not that Ray has the same concerns with her as he did Ryan. If Ryan is motivation incarnate, Jack is efficiency. She doesn’t do two tasks when one will suffice. She’d never race off immediately to capture Michael knowing a group effort would get it done better.

“You’re sure Plan G is coming?”

“Geoff will,” Ray answers. He’s almost as sure of it as he was sure of Ryan, though he knew Geoff wouldn’t show up early. Being early is begging for the inviter’s favour, and that’s not the kind of man Geoff Ramsey will ever be.

“Okay, if you’re sure.” Jack takes a sip of her coffee, makes a face and adds two spoons of sugar. Her second sip is more to her liking. “Do you know when though?”

Ray shrugs. Difficult enough to commit to confidence about Geoff and Gavin showing up. An ETA is just impossible.

“Because if none of us has eaten we should grab breakfast somewhere.”

“Make something.”

Her expression turns deadly. Ray starts scanning his ex for weapons outlines. Just in case he doesn’t self-edit fast enough, he wants to make sure he knows what he’s about to get assaulted with. Call it the sniper personality type. He likes information. “Make something because you’re the best one with pig in the morning and not because you’re the kitchen bitch!”

“Pig in the morning?” Ryan asks with arched eyebrows Ray can actually see. Some time yesterday Ryan took the mask off. It’s the first time Ray’s seen his cheekbones since they broke up. Not that he was stupid enough to say that and raise his defenses enough to make him put it back on.

“Bacon, sausage, Canadian back bacon. It’s all great. Shit, make me a pork chop on toast, I’d eat the fuck out of that too. I didn’t rewrite my memories of you to have you as the house girlie while you were gone. I’m not a fuckin’ moron. I just end up having to pour condiments on whatever I make because it’s always shitty. You are a pig god.”

Jack smirks and doesn’t pull the SNS pistol Ray’s almost positive is outlined in her boxy patterned blouse. Looks like he’s properly covered his ass. Though that implies bullshitting to not get glacked and Ray meant every word. FAHC couldn’t have gotten half of what they did done without her. No one _ever_ thought of her as a cock warmer the way the shitty biker gangs treat their girlfriends.

“Do you even have bacon? Because if I need to leave the house to get it at a grocery store it completely defeats the purpose of cooking over a diner.”

“I do, I do.” It’s one of the rare cookable foods Ray consistently buys. Mainly because it always seems like one of those foods that he’ll eat no matter how it turns out because how can you ruin it that badly. And then he winds up with black char, because he is eternally a ruiner of all cookable things. 

Ray shows her where it is in the fridge, and reminds her which dishes are in which cupboards. From there Jack doesn’t fuck around. She pulls out two frying pans, slices the bacon in half lengthwise, and layers the strips in so as much surface touches the pan as possible. Pretty much the second the meat starts to curl Ray’s mouth starts watering. She could garnish it with sprinkles of piss and he’d probably still eat it.

Thank god, it’s sooner rather than later that she whips half a dozen paper towels off the hanging roll and starts to fold them. Ray knows what’s next, and he grabs the grapefruit juice in anticipation. Ryan hates it, too sour, and Jack will stick with her coffee, but Ray wants the full fuckin’ breakfast experience, morning nectar and all. Some people would probably be shocked he’d bother to buy paper towels -like any of his living-other-lives brothers- but then they’ve never needed makeshift bandages and had to make due with Bounty and tape, have they. Random household shit tends to have its uses.

Once Jack’s got the excess grease patted off she divides the crispy, glistening stack into 4 piles. One for each of them, and one for leftovers, Ray has to assume. Maybe he can plead some BLTs out of her. Or if he’s impossibly lucky, maybe she’ll make those dark chocolate bacon cupcakes she made for Barbara’s birthday that one time. Ray would easily murder an entire bus of people if a tray of those cupcakes were sitting on the furthest back seat.

Ryan eyeballs his heaping plate once Jack plunks it down in front of him, before looking back over at her. “A full plate of only bacon? That’s probably bad for us.”

“Are you fucking shitting me man?” Ray asks around his first mouthful.

“Is that...rhetorical? You do know arteries-”

“You have an active wound in your leg, right?” Jack interrupts.

Ryan shrugs slightly. It’s not nearly the gestures he makes when he talks about things that interest him, like metalcraft. It’s also not him staying mute until he’s got his mask on and his Vagabond work persona in place. Jack’s always been the best at edging Ryan to that line without shoving him over. Gavin was always the worst, Geoff a close second. 

“I saw the way you weren’t limping,” she replies. For the record, Ray isn’t a block of wood, he’s aware of his surroundings, he saw the taped down gauze when they were in bed. He just knows it won’t help Ryan answer in detail if he chimes in.

Ryan shrugs even more slightly. Glass moves more fluidly than his shoulders. But he does add in a few words. A lifetime ago, six months ago, it’d be enough to have Ray stroke his foot against Jack’s leg under the table, a non-verbal congrats on the successful coaxing. He can’t do that now though. “Job sicced her dog on me. Not gonna get rabies, but not gonna get that chunk of my calf back either.”

“So I think what Ray was saying is, as far as arteries go, we have a higher chance of getting stabbed in one and spraying out on the wallpaper than dying from a clog.”

Ray doesn’t give two shits about heart attacks or exsanguination. Not with this much piping hot crispy goodness navigating over his taste buds. He’d say it’s heaven, except bacon definitely exists and he definitely gets to have it, and he can’t say either about the other. And it’s more than just the bacon. It’s nice, having this again. He’s missing sixty percent of his loves, and the inevitable noise and chaos they create, true. But forty percent of a full house is infinitely better than what he’s had since they all started sleeping in their own homes rather than crashing together in an erratic lack of pattern that helped Ryan and Geoff keep the paranoia down.

The thing is, he’s going to destroy this. The second he mentions Michael any trace elements of hominess and peace are going to drain right out of them. Yeah, that’s exactly what he wanted Wednesday, but minds change. The thing about revenge being a dish best served cold is that sometimes you go to eat cold, waited on food and you’re like why the fuck did I think this would be a good dinner?

He’s fucked though. There’s no exit strategy for this conversation. After months of not talking to any of them at all, and only seeing Ryan around very sporadically, a group text is a massive red flag. They all know they’ve been called for something Ray’s best hope is that Geoff and Gavin don’t show up. That’ll buy him some time. After a continuation of pleasantries he can figure out a way to mislead Jack and Ryan. Jack and Ryan are hard people to bullshit, but Geoff is impossible.

Of course, he doesn’t get what he wants. Why would life work like that?

“What’s up, dickbags?” rings through the condo. Ray startles at the suddenness of his ex-boss’s voice, even going as far as sitting straight up for a moment before returning to his natural slump. By the time he’s relaxed there’s no evidence that Ryan pulled his gun either, though Ray’s sure he saw it in his periphery. It in no way surprises Ray that Geoff walked in without knocking. Even if the door wasn’t unlocked he’d have a key. He also has the attitude for it. Doesn’t matter if he’s Geoff Ramsey or DGG at the time, he owns every space he walks into.

“I’m here too,” Jack calls back.

“Yeah, I figured. But Vulvabags doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?”

When Geoff doesn’t immediately join them in the kitchen, they decide in silent unison to get up and go to him. Impossible to tell if it’s a power play or not. Ray would put small bills, like a fiver or a buck, on it being one. Geoff hasn’t had control of them in four and a half months, he probably needs a gesture like this to feel on top of the situation. It’s a bit petty, but Ray can deal. Besides, he’s the one with the big news. Geoff’ll have no choice but to cede him the floor sooner or later.

The real surprise of the day is what he has with him, the instantly obvious reason that Geoff didn’t just stride in and sample the buttercream icing with a tattooed finger. Namely Gavin, handcuffed to a wheelchair with duct tape over his mouth. Good thing Ray pays the door manager a stipend to look the other way in certain cases.

“Someone didn’t feel like getting out of bed this morning,” Geoff explains, tone a false cheerful. Judging by Gavin’s snarls under the duct tape his feelings are a bit stronger than that.

Ray’s always liked his penthouse. Not a lot of people have a split level penthouse. Not a lot of people who can afford thousand dollar wine want nine stairs in either direction. Ray though, only partakes in the herb. Stairs don’t mean shit to him. They mean something now though. Ray doesn’t think Geoff’s going to do it until he does; he stays standing on the small landing but shoves Gavin’s wheelchair down the mini flight. The large wheels don’t take the stairs well. Before he’s halfway down it’s tipping. It lands fully on its right side with a hard thud, leaving the Brit to groan into the tape. Under different circumstances they’d be laughing. Ray used to love Ryan and Michael’s giggles. Now it just makes things more tense.

“Get him up. We need to have a serious conversation,” Jack says. Ray appreciates the back up. Especially considering Jack doesn’t even mutter anything about not knowing about what, exactly. Jack’s a champion mutterer. The inside of her truck cab has probably heard a million words by now.

Geoff rolls his eyes. “Considering he’ll attempt to take my gun and shoot us, I’m thinking ...no?”

“At least take the duct tape off so he can say his peace,” Ray counter offers.

Geoff’s eyes are doing straight up barrel rolls, but he springs down the stairs and bends to rip the tape off Gavin’s face. Sparing no effort to save his facial hair or his skin, at all. Clearly they haven’t gotten over the animosity in the months that Ray hasn’t seen them.

Gavin is not immediately full of peace to say. Quelle fucking surprise. He doesn’t do anything as embarrassing and futile as try to bite Geoff before the boss moves away, but he does attempt to buck his body, wheelchair moving a few inches with him. “When I get out of this I’m going to rip your anus apart.”

Ray doesn’t know if Gavin is threatening him or Geoff. Geoff got him here, but he’s the reason Gavin’s here, and Gavino, internet scourge of Los Santos isn’t known for keeping his grudges contained. It doesn’t really matter. If the Brit’s not yelling about something else entirely in the next ten minutes, Ray’s never really known the man.

“I saw Michael.”

“What?”

“I killed the Faint Crew for what they did,” Geoff replies coldly. Judging by Jack’s brief expression, she has intimate knowledge of what happened to Faint. Ray could guess it was her last bout of violence before she went straight. They executed the thirty or forty people necessary and then she put her knives down and hopped in a truck due to take alfalfa to Utah.

“I killed the Titans Crew for what they did.” Gavin adds. Ray didn’t know that either, but it makes sense. Most of the Titans Crew died in electronic accidents, like elevators suddenly not counting floors, or fire alarms ceasing to call the fire department. When Fake AH was falling apart Ray should have guessed that as one of the reasons Gavin no longer cared about heisting. It’s so like him to think _I’ve already killed the worst of the worst, why do more?_ that Ray doesn’t know how none of them figured it out.

Ray appreciates what Geoff and Gavin are saying. And he appreciates the action too. If he’d ever found true proof of Michael’s death, not just rumours, he would have traced that back to the cause and played six degrees of separation with his Uzi. But the facts are both slaughters were for naught. All those bodies might have deserved death, for one thing or another. But not for the blood of their MLP. 

“I got both of those shallow graves DNA tested. Not Michael. He’s in Vegas.”

“How do you know?” Geoff asks.

“I asked a genie. I flew down and observed him, fucktard. He’s there with another crew.”

“Not my boi,” Gavin denies.

“He is. It’s his jacket.”

Funny how that’s enough proof for them too.

Jack pulls out her phone. Like Ray said; efficient. The prerecorded Pegasus voice is loud enough that they can all hear it. She orders a four seater helicopter, which is depressing as hell. The last time Ray was in a helicopter with Jack Michael was sucking Ryan’s dick in the back.

The ride from Los Santos to Vegas is about an hour and a half. It’s three hours driving, but not being stuck on an interstate is the exact reason to take to the sky. Technically there are some airspace issues, but Jack is a BAMF when it comes to flying, and could easily shoot any motherfucker down who happened to complain. The experience is as bad as Ray thought it would be. Worse, even. It’s not that he’s bummed because he’s not banging or getting banged. It’s not like they had victory sex every time they did a heist; sometimes things went poorly. But even at their worst, one of them no excuses messed up, it’s never been this tense. What it’s _really_ like is home in the first weeks after Michael’s sudden disappearance. 

Yeah, the atmosphere makes sense. Gavin loathes everyone, except maybe Jack. It’s probable Ryan has usurped jobs from the meagre remains of Geoff’s crew. Jack and Geoff parted on the blackest, bloodiest of terms. Ray’s ignored every attempt of Geoff to rehire him, which from DGG is less of an olive branch and more of an olive tree. Olive orchard, even. Ray’s not naive. He gets it. He just hates it. Maybe even more than empty beds in the morning.

When they land the most Ray has to offer is the safehouse the crew hid in. There’s no one inside, but a thorough ransacking finds a tablet and a set of keys, which is enough to send Gavin and Jack in two very different directions.

It’s a bit harder to get shit done in Vegas. Fake AH doesn’t have minions here, people on the periphery of the Crew who desperately want in and will do what they gotta do to look worthy. Hell they might not have that at home. Ray hasn’t talked to Matt or Jeremy or Steffie in months. They’ve probably got bigger ambitions than waiting around to see if their bosses got their shit together. He’d ask Geoff about it, except he thinks Geoff might stab him if he does. Geoff takes his empire very seriously. There are no favours to call in either. No one that turned to Fake AH for a loan or an unregistered gun and then quietly handed over their personal info, just in case.

Still they do indeed get shit done. Geoff didn’t exactly come into Los Santos with a contact list, and he found a way to get his needs met. Compound that ambitious streak by five and Michael is found in six hours. In a bungalow. In suburbia. It really is Michael, not some anus who stole his jacket. Ray already knew, but now he _knows_. Vagabond and Gavino have made certain of it, through blood and bytes. They’re undoubtable in their spheres of skills. Ray’s not sure if the certainty of Michael the traitor is better or worse than finding out some asswipe murdered him and thought it okay to loot his corpse and wear its trinkets. It’s enough to make Ray want a bong hit either way.

They don’t kick the door down, or riddle the house with bullets. Any other betrayer and it wouldn’t be a second thought -Flynt Coal did not go out easy- but it’s Michael. He owes them some answers. So instead they walk up the sidewalk in a group. Ryan and Gavin in the front, he and Jack slightly flanking, Geoff in the back. It’s not the smartest configuration from a strategy standpoint, but Ray suspects they all have their reasons.

Once they’re all on the porch Ryan knocks on the door. The slight padding of gloved hand does nothing to muffle the loud thud against the wood. After a few seconds, likely the delay of crossing the house, Michael opens it. 

Gavin immediately punches him in the face. Ray nods to himself. He knew Gavin was going to do that; it’s why he went in front. Geoff knew Gavin was going to do that too. It’s why he took six-o-clock to Gavino’s twelve, where he wouldn’t be able to hold the man back in time. They all know that instantaneous violence isn’t the best way to start an interrogation, but as burdened with emotion as they all feel, letting Gavin smash Michael’s face in was probably good for Geoff’s soul.

Michael staggers back a few steps, then falls. Both his legs are kicked out in front of him, ankles over the threshold of the door. His face is reddening already, and Ray only wishes Gav was wearing rings. Oh well. They’ve got all afternoon. All week, if it comes to it.

“Ow!”

Before Ray can comment on Michael’s ridiculously tame response, it happens. A kid runs forward from out of nowhere. Bright purple shirt, bright red pants, wildly curly hair cut short enough to just sort of circle her head. “Daddy’s got an owie? Do you need a bandaid?”

“What the fuck?” Geoff cries out. Ray’s pretty sure he speaks for them all.

“Ooooh. You said a bad word. Now you only get half dessert. If you say ‘nother one you don’t get no dessert at all. And if you say _’nother_ one you don’t get a fruit snack in your lunch kit.” Judging by the girl’s flared eyes this is the worst punishment in the world.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah huh.” Educating Geoff abruptly loses its appeal and she turns back to Michael. There are red bows running down the spine of her shirt, so at least whoever dressed her wasn’t colour blind. “I got princesses!”

“No Callie, I’m fine. I don’t need a bandaid.”

“You said owie!” She disputes Michael’s calm tone with a shout. Not a high shriek fitting the tiny throat and body it’s coming from, but a firm little voice. A kiddie version of Geoff informing Ryan that ‘low on bullets’ means low, not out of ammo entirely.

“Yes, I did. But I didn’t get a cut or a scrape. I got hit. Bandaids are for blood, remember?”

“Hitting is bad. You have to go to the quiet corner until you can say you’re sorry ‘cause you’re ready and your body is calm.”

Michael nods. “I know.”

“But no one’s in the corner!” She whirls on them furiously, hair flying. “Who hit?”

Gavin doesn’t admit it, and it feels weird to throw a grown man under the bus of a three year old, so Ray doesn’t say anything.

“Who hit? You gotta go to the quiet corner!” She stomps her sandaled foot. “Who hit who hit who hit!”

She’s melting down, and behind her back Michael is mouthing _come on_ frantically. Ray’s never seen that kind of desperate pleading from someone in their crew before. Not even when they all broke up. That was all rage and sorrow and cold shoulders, not begging. Not that he blames the man. If there’s anything Ray knows how to deal with less than a preschooler it’s a freaking out preschooler. He’s an open mouth from throwing Gavin to the wolves, weird or not, when Ryan takes the grenade.

“Me.”

“It’s okay we’re not mad but hitting hurts,” she says by rote, down to the plural. “You can’t hit when you’re ‘pset because it makes everybody upset. Look at Daddy’s face. He looks upset and hurt. You think about how he feels until you’re ready to say sorry.”

She pads out onto the sidewalk, sandals softly clicking against her heels, the only noise among stunned silence. She’s about as high as their friggin concealed weapons, and never has Ray been more worried that his safety’s in the wrong position. Not even the first time he did a face to face job and checked like fifty times that his pistol would be ready to shoot the instant he needed it. Then she reaches out and grabs Ryan by the wrist and tugs in a way that even they can tell is determinedly gentle. You’d basically have to be a monster to pull out of that grip. Since he’s not, he follows her into the house. Presumably to the quiet corner. Christ.

The second she’s out of earshot Geoff repeats “what the fuck!”

“Is this a hostage taking thing?”

“She called him-”

“It could be Stockholm-”

“But then why-”

“She’s my daughter,” Michael says standing up. For all that Gavin probably broke a knuckle hitting him he doesn’t seem wary. “I was with Valerie before I was with you. You know that. She said she was on the pill.”

“Yeah, she also said she was clean and then we all got gonorrhea.” It was a great orgy of a first time, at least judging by the fragments of the night Ray can remember, but the aftermath was uncomfortable.

“The fuck am I supposed to do now, time travel and tell myself to use condoms? Anyway, she didn’t tell me. She never even broke up with me officially. Just stayed away.”

Ray nods. His side sluts did too, after that night. Everyone’s did. He still doesn’t know how the greater Los Santos found out. They’d gotten a few cracks about UST from the braver souls, on occasion, but no one really thought it was true. Or at least no one’d ever mentioned it in a serious way. And then it was the morning after, and the week after, and none of their regular women or men were picking up their phones for fear of jealous glacking. Most of the night’s sex was a drunk and drugged blur but the best Ray can figure is they started at a club and someone saw them kiss. Or get their dick out. Whatever.

“And then she dies, and the kid’s mine. There’s not enough on my record to deny me custody.”

“And the first thing you do is fuck off to fucking Vegas?” Jack yells. Yep, there’s that same _I am right and you are stupid_ shouting tone that the kid had. Ray’s not very good at it. He’s not often in the position of being totally justified, he has no practice with it.

“What was I supposed to do? I didn’t have a fucking lot of options.”

“Dump the brat at the orphanage and come home to blaze with Ray,” Gavin suggests. Ray can tell it’s a bad thing to say by Michael’s stormy eyes.

“Fuck you, you piece of shit. Do you know how bad those orphanages are? Do you know that Los Santos is the only place in North America that even has orphanages still? What do you think the numbers are between kids already there, prospective parents, and parents that get killed every day?”

“Not good?” Ray offers. He’s never really thought about it, but supply probably heavily outweighs demand.

Michael shakes his head. His curls bounce less than the kid’s did, but now that Ray knows he can see the similarities. “She’d never get adopted. She’d rot until she was eighteen, if she even made it that long.”

“So we’ve established that you weren’t gonna chuck her.” If Ray had to guess by expression, he’s pretty sure Jack doesn’t fault Michael for the decision. She looks very mildly proud of Michael for being a objectively decent person. Then she frowns. “But the plan was still running without saying anything? We thought you were dead, you asshole.”

“What was I supposed to say? You’d tell me to orphan her. Like you literally _just did_.”

Gavin rolls his eyes. “Well, yeah. You’ve been stuck with her six months now. Surely you can see by now that sex and guns and drugs and bombs are better than poopy nappies and time outs. You could be partying by tonight if you want. Jack’s got a helicopter.”

Ray’s fully expecting what happens next. He even steps to the side a little so when Michael knocks Gav out Gavin doesn’t stumble into him as he staggers backwards off the porch. Ray’s got foresight like a motherfucker.

“One more fucking word about abandoning her and I’ll grab the gun I know you have and shoot you in your good testicle.”

Jack pulls them on track again. “So didn’t tell us. Fine, I get it. But you joined a new crew in Vegas. What the hell?”

“It wasn’t intentional. I couldn’t be on my own in Los Santos, exiled from Fake AH but with all of Fake AH’s rivals on my ass. She’d be dead or tortured within the week. So I got a new identity, killed the forger just in case and fucked off. Except as it turns out I have zero fucking transferrable skills. Doesn’t matter what the fuck PHD he put on my new identity if I can’t fuckin’ do the job. So I found a gang and this time I kept home separate from work. They don’t even know my last goddamn name.”

“And it’s better?” It’s the first thing Geoff’s asked. The question feels a lot heavier than anything Jack or Gavin has said.

Michael feels it too. He shrugs and sighs. “I miss my boyfriends. And I miss having a crew that aren’t complete morons. But what the fuck. You can only have so much.”

Ray’s not sure what the hell he’s supposed to say about that. It’s a fuck of a lot easier for Michael to say that than any of them. He left on a high note. Panicked, apparently, frantic for a safe solution. But he left in a way that left him pining for boyfriends he’d had to separate from. He wasn’t forced to see -fucking experience- their relationship grinding to dust under five different reactions to tragedy. Michael deciding what he could have essentially decided what everyone else got to have too. Bastard.

At least he’s not a betrayer.

“Are-” Whatever Gavin has to say is quickly cut off by an elbow to the gut. Ray establishes the motivation a second later himself. The kid is coming back down the hallway, Ryan close behind her. Evidently Geoff figured out that whatever Gavin had to say probably wasn’t kid friendly.

“Ryan’s ready to ‘pologise.” 

All of them turning at once to look at Ryan produces sort of a ripple effect. Ryan is not the apologies kind of person. Ray gets that he’s humouring the kid, he’s just surprised he’d bother. Not for the first time Ray wonders what his expression is under the mask.

“I’m sorry for hitting you.”

Callie turns to Michael. “Do you ‘cept his apology or do you wanna say something?”

“I accept.”

“Kay. Now you gotta hug.”

They do. Ryan and Michael do, and Ray knows he’s not just seeing things, there’s real emotion there. Michael wants to be in Ryan’s arms and Ryan’s not over him, despite the rumors Ray’s heard about girlfriends.

“Now we can play.”

“Oh yeah?”

“We have to pick inside or outside. You’re letting the bugs in with the door open. Bugs stay outside. If you want to play with bugs you have to stay outside.” She sounds like she’s saying it like it’s a legit option. Ray thought girls were scared of bugs. The kid’s a little badass.

“Inside,” Geoff says firmly. He could be saying it for tactical reasons. If they end up doing something to Michael, it’ll be better if the neighbours don’t have a story to tell the cops about a group of thugs playing on the lawn. He could be saying it because regardless of the situation he likes to be the one in charge, even if the only person listening is a kid. Or maybe he’s hungover, and since he’s not wearing douchebag sunglasses like Gavin the sunlight is killing his eyes.

They cross the threshold and move in further in clumps, considering the hallway is only so wide. Gavin’s twelve-o-clock again, though Ray’s pretty sure this time he doesn’t have any plans of hitting anyone. Or at least he is until Callie runs zig zags through their legs and ends up in front.

“You- You got any toys?” It takes Gavin a second to swallow his pride and ask Callie a question like she’s a human being, not just a burden on Michael, but he’s instantly met with enthusiasm.

“So many many many! Almost as much as daycare. Amanda says I’m spoiled but nuh uh. She just doesn’t have many many many because her daddy’s in the army and they move and they can only have five boxes.”

“Sounds like Amanda’s a right bint.”

“What’s that?” Callie asks with the curious innocence of a toddler, goddamn Gavin, fucking idiot.

Geoff stretches out and kicks Gavin in the calf. He nearly trips on nothing. “I mean she’s probably jealous.”

Jack’s behind the rest of them, but Ray doesn’t realise she’s still at the door until she sighs and asks Michael if he’d like it locked, or what. The homeowner says yes, then turns to Ryan. “Sorry about the whole-”

He shakes his skull-head at Michael. “It’s fine.”

“Her daycare is all about empathy. It’s annoying as fuck but...”

“That’s probably good. It’d be harder for us to teach it.” The plural just spills out of Ray, completely unexpected. Thank god Michael doesn’t seem to notice, too caught in the potential failings of his fatherhood.

“Yeah. I mean I’m home a lot, technically I could probably get away with a babysitter. But kids need to be socialised and shit.”

“I’ve heard that they get sick less frequently when they get older if they are social as preschoolers.” It sounds true, like it makes sense, but it’s still a shocking thing to come out of Ryan’s mouth. Ryan knows weapons, motorcycles, and engineering. Who would have thought he’d know a goddamn thing about children’s health?

Upon crossing the threshold it’s immediately obvious that when Michael bought this house he didn’t know what the fuck to do with an office. Instead of having some bullshit desktop computer and a few pieces of art it’s a living room and a Toys R Us melded into one. There’s a few bean bags, and a tiny little plastic table with tiny little chairs, and a couch to lounge on. The closet that should probably hold file cabinets or some shit looks to be full with costumes. Most of the floor is fluffy carpet, but one part has been torn up for linoleum and that’s the part that hosts a wide low easel almost as big as a sheet of plywood. In the corner is a teeter totter rocking chair hybrid, and a dollhouse takes up half a wall, and beside it is a full laundry basket of dolls. Another basket is full of that fat dumb kids Lego, although maybe it’s just for young kids, since Ray’s pretty sure Callie’s not dumb. She’s got more stuffed animals than Ray has bullets, and a ton of other random shit Ray can’t even begin to name, because why the fuck would he watch kids commercials? 

Maybe little Amanda Bintface was right about the too many toys thing. Or maybe she’s not. Ray’s the youngest and he bailed to the seedier parts of Los Santos before his siblings had kids. For all he knows an entire room of shit is the right amount of toys. He doubts it though. More likely Michael started off their relationship trying to buy her love. It worked, obviously. It’s easy to tell they both love each other.

At a loss for how to progress from here, Ray sits on the floor, on a giant foam puzzle with the alphabet on the pieces. It’s not like he can sit on the couch, Geoff and Gavin have already claimed it. No one attempting to murder each other in the last few hours doesn’t mean they’re reconciled enough to dogpile the couch.

“What’s your favourite?”

Callie runs across the room then back to them. “This is my medical kit.” It comes out like med-kull which Ray first finds adorable then immediately starts to panic about. He likes Michael’s kid. Oh fuck, he likes Michael’s kid. And the kit itself is one of the tin boxes they always kept in their cars in case someone got shot or stabbed. Michael keeping it is the first real sign that he didn’t forget about them, didn’t relegate them to the past as easy nostalgia.

“This is your favourite, sweetheart?” Geoff asks. He seems genuinely interested, like Callie’s showing him a prototype gun or blueprints for a store they haven’t hit yet.

“Yeah huh. It has bandaids and bandaids and bandaids and coughie candies and a thermometer and tongue sticks and look!” Callie pulls something out and nearly whips it in Geoff’s face. 

The next five seconds are like slo-mo. Ray can see Geoff struggling to rein in his instincts at something coming towards his face, Michael reacting to the assumption of what Geoff will do, and even Gavin right next to Geoff on the couch preparing to intervene. And then there’s just Callie, so fucking trusting and no goddamn wonder Michael wanted her out of sight. Even if Ray did like her, he doesn’t know how to be the kind of adult a kid can trust.

But Geoff doesn’t swing out and Gavin and Michael don’t have to rescue her. Thank god, thank christ, thank the patron saint of weapons and perfect accuracy. Ray doesn’t pray, and he certainly doesn’t _believe_ , but thank everything that exists that Geoff didn’t instinctively hit a little kid.

“It’s a stethoscope,” Callie explains, holding the object about an inch away from Geoff’s eyeballs. The word is oddly less mangled than ‘medical’. “It works like you can hear hearts all lub dub lub dub.” Callie does a hip cocking, fist pumping dance to go with her heartbeat rhythm and it’s adorable and Ray’s done for. He needs a fuckin’ smoke. 

He doesn’t draw attention to himself by saying he’ll be right back. He just slips out of the room as the others chat with the kid about doctors and hearts and how smart she is. Ray doesn’t go far though, just out onto the front porch. There’s no rocking chair, Michael hasn’t turned that horrifically domestic. But now that Ray’s got kids shit in mind, he’s pretty sure the wide circle of dead grass is from an inflatable pool. Michael’s a goddamn dad, with all the trappings, whether or not he hates Gavin for calling them a trap. Michael’s a dad, and he was fucking right to leave, and the sooner Ray smokes his bone down to a roach, the better his brain will be able to handle the world turning on its side.

Fuck, and to think he thought the world had changed when he had proof that Michael was alive. What a fucking joke. That was easy street, compared to this.

Ray hears the drag of the door pulling open against the weatherstripping but doesn’t turn back to look. Whoever it is will say something. Whether that’s asking for a drag or telling him to come in to say his goodbyes, they’re going back to Los Santos since they can’t do what they came for, Ray doesn’t know. Doesn’t care, not with the wrap of smoke to protect him.

“You didn’t have to come out here, dipshit,” are Michael’s first words in the last six months meant for him specifically. As far as openers go, Ray’s pretty sure he’s going to call bullshit.

“I didn’t think you’d have smoking around your kid. Isn’t that like a thing?”

“On billboards and shit maybe. I smoke in the kitchen with the window open. But out here’s fine too, I guess, if you wanna get sunburnt.”

Sunburnt implies Michael gives a crap about how his body fares in the heat. Ray’s absolutely positive that he never used to. There was one time he wouldn’t take his signature jacket off and literally passed out from heat stroke. Geoff got hella pissed because they had to delay their food truck job for two days. “You use sunscreen and shit now?”

Michael plucks the joint from between Ray’s loose fingers. He takes a drag and answers as he exhales. “No kid likes skin cancer, man.”

Ray nods his head. He’s got a point.

Michael doesn’t take a second drag, just passes it back. Ray’s not surprised. Michael’s always been a stupid fruity mixed drinks kind of intoxicated man. He probably doesn’t even own his own weed, just takes the occasional puff of his useless shitty new crew’s stash. If his new crew is even diversified enough to have their own strains to sell. Out of Ray’s exes, Gavin’s the only one who really partook with him, could go bowl for bowl. Or at least he used to be into it. If rumour has it right, Gav’s into harder shit these post-Michael days, shit that makes him pass out or stay up for days, whatever makes the night zoom by. Ray doesn’t know that for fact though. Keeping tabs on all of them hurt too much, bad enough to spend his life gathering scraps of info about Michael.

Ray’s just tucking his roach into the cigarette case he keeps in his back pocket when the door opens again. Again he doesn’t turn, but the flash of floral in the corner of his eye only means one thing. It’s not good. With Jack outside that leaves Callie with the most violent, the most ruthless and the most indifferent of their crew. It makes Ray’s stomach clench despite the sweet bud saturated into his muscles. “You left her with them?”

Michael must think he’s talking to him. He replies more seriously than Ray’s used to. “It was never anything against you guys. If it was you think I’d’ve let Callie take Ryan to the time out corner?”

Ray shrugs.

“Brownman seriously. You don’t- It wasn’t about you.” Each word is its own forceful sentence. “We had too much blood on our hands.”

Ray doesn’t know what to say to that. He really doesn’t. And besides, his concern is with Jack, and how she possibly could have left the playroom. “They okay?”

“Gav told her he fell off his bike in a motorcycle chase. She’s freakin’ covering him in bandaids to fix him. Geoff’s her nurse.”

“She didn’t want you to be her nurse?”

“I was gonna, but Geoff said, and I quote, ‘fuck gender stereotypes’, took the half dessert penalty and started telling her about how anyone can do any job.”

In theory that sounds fine. If Geoff’s in monologue mode, the most he’ll get is loud, not frightening. Gavin will either absorb every word like it’s liquid gold or wander off from boredom. Maybe he’ll be the next to pop out to the porch and gank a joint from him. And hey, Ryan already had an opinion about children’s health. It’s entirely possible he has secret opinions about gender roles too. They could be bickering while Callie’s playing dolls and ignoring the idiot adults in the room.

In practice, Ray makes it halfway to the play room before turning around, running down the sidewalk to deposit his weapons in their car, and bolting back for the house. Most _savage_ , most _cold-blooded_ , most _apathetic_. Somehow Michael and Jack are okay with that, but Ray is absolutely not having it.

“-important thing to remember is bitches aren’t women. Bitches are any gender, as long as they’re cowards, or people who owe you but haven’t paid, or anyone beneath you.” Geoff finishes as Ray steps into the room. Geoff and Ryan are on the couch now, Gavin on the floor with his legs in a V so Callie can stand close. Callie’s got her stethoscope just barely hanging on to her neck, and a thin flashlight with the battery removed pointing at Gavin’s eye. From what Ray can tell, she’s taking in Geoff’s lecture like scripture.

“Oh Jesus,” Jack mutters. She and Michael have both followed him, though without the same completely rational panic Ray was feeling that’s only just beginning to ebb away.

“Anyone you’re gonna glack,” Gavin adds. Ray’s surprised he can move his jaw for the amount of bandaids sticking to his face.

“What’s glack?”

Geoff smiles. “It’s an adult thing. You’ll find out when you’re a grown up.”

“So’s smoking. Teacher Addy says it makes sticky icky monsters grow in your lungs,” Callie says. 

Ray frowns at the comment. Is she saying it because he or Michael smells? Or did she just somehow know that’s what it means when adults go outside? Ray didn’t think he smelled that badly, that noticeably of pot. But then again he’s never been in a situation before where he has to care if someone smells it on him. Not a lot of professional suit and tie meetings for snipers. Or thugs in general, really. Geoff never has to wear his, he just likes it, the bossy pretentious ass.

“Teacher Addy shouldn’t try to scare you,” Ryan growls. Ray knows that voice. That’s his planning voice.

“I wasn’t scared. Daddy can fight monsters. He can fight anything. Boom boom bah!” She adds her own sound effects to punching the air. Being high doesn’t make that any less adorable. It just makes him less freaked out about finding it so.

“Your daddy’s pretty badass,” Geoff agrees.

“Thank you,” Michael says.

Callie’s expression lights up and she runs over to him. “Daddy! Uncle Geoff can’t have dessert or fruit snacks for forever! He said so many so many so many.”

Michael puts a hand on her, gently. Callie stretches up into it like a cat. He keeps it there as he answers her. “Did he?”

“He really did,” Ryan says drily.

“Sorry man,” Geoff says, smoothly getting to his feet. “Not used to censoring myself. But no dessert forever is a hefty punishment. I wouldn’t risk it if I was you, little lady.”

The kid breaks away from Michael and asks the room, “does anyone else have ouchies?”

“Callie, remember how I said you only get one box of bandaids a week. Are you sure you want to use them all up today? There are three days left until Monday.” Michael shows her three fingers.

“Gavvy was super super super hurt! He said he forgot to wear a jacket and left all his skin on the road!” Ray makes a face as his stomach lurches. A little road rash is fucking terrible. He’d honestly rather get shot. “So he needed lotsa bandaids.”

“I did I did,” Gavin confirms.

“Well I’m sad for Gavvy, but a rule is a rule. Do you want to count how many you have left? You can pick who helps.” Michael says it with certainty, like he’s sure any of them would help. He’s probably not wrong. Gavin, Geoff, and Ryan are already out there, on the playing trenches.

“Nuh uh. I wanna play pirates!”

“You sure? There’s only time for one more thing before dinner.”

“Super sure!” Callie jumps in the air frog-style, less about the actual height, more about the compressed to sprung legs. Ray has a momentary hallucination about teaching her parkour. “Sometimes I can only play pirates at daycare ‘cause you need lotsa people, but look how many!”

“Five friends and me. Do you want to count?”

“No!” She throws her bandaid box on the floor and runs over to the closet. All the hangers are at her height, only a few feet off the ground. She pulls one down and slips the costume on. It’s only an apron, black and white striped. Clever, that it’s not covered in skull and crossbones shit. This way Callie can use it for Jail, or Chef, or even Referee, if there’s a make believe game about that.

They end up all getting something to put on. Some make sense, like Gavin’s fake beard and the skull barrette she jams into Jack’s hair and Ray’s own bandana. He doesn’t get why Geoff is wearing a crown or Ryan’s mardigras beads. And maybe that’s where Callie loses her own train of thought, because after she curls the cheap string of plastic beads around Ryan’s neck she stands still, just frowning. Then she clamps her tiny hands on either side of Ryan’s leather clad face and Ray wonders if it’s a delayed fear reaction to the terrifying skull. That’s it, they’ve permanently fucked up Michael’s kid within twenty minutes of exposure, fuck, they’re so shitty, they’re-

“Callie, words. When you don’t talk people don’t know what you’re thinking,” Michael calls out calmly. Maybe he’s used to this. Maybe life with her mom was traumatizing, and she went mute, and that’s why an emotionally stable daycare is important. Ray hasn’t seen Callie anything but talkative, but again, there’s the twenty minute timestamp. He doesn’t know shit about shit, really. 

“Ryan do you want to be a different guy?”

“What?”

“You’re still wearing the same mask all day! You can be different!” 

Again Ray tenses. As jumpy as Geoff is with surprise projectiles -he once shot a pillow tossed at him- Ryan is sensitive about people telling him when he can and can’t wear his mask. When they first started going home as a group, regardless of who’s home it was that night, it took weeks for it come off. The relaxing atmosphere of places not his own only made Ryan more alert and on edge, less willing to settle in.

Ryan doesn’t take offense, thank christ. He just says “I like this one.”

“Okay!” Apparently finding the answer satisfactory, Callie switches into game mode. She points to the closet. “Em-ni-mes! Oh no!”

 

Ryan bolts out of the playroom and for a second Ray’s panicked. Then he comes back with a laundry basket, handles clamped in gloveless hands. Ray has no idea when he took them off, but if he’s right about Ryan’s mindset, it’s a statement. The basket is full of Michael’s balled up socks, like he dumped the entire drawer. “Queen Pirate Callie I found cannons!”

“Yay Pirate Ryan!”

Ray can’t help himself. He’s pretty sure the counting thing Michael’s done a few times is a thing. Like a learning moment or something. He’s got a prime moment here, and logically yeah he knows he’s not the kid’s parent or caregiver. But still, it just slips out. “Queen Pirate Callie, you should count how many we have!”

“No!”

“But we need to know so we don’t use them all at once. What if we only take down the first ship?”

“We’d be up poo creak, man,” Gavin offers.

Callie ignores them both completely. “Who wants to be the bad Cap’pin?”

Ray hesitates. No way does he want to be a bad guy in front of this sweet kid. From the resounding silence everyone feels the same way.

“Seriously?” Michael mutters. “Jesus.”

He doesn’t immediately get fined half a dessert and Ray wonders if Callie didn’t hear or if there’s no ruling about religious swears. He would have thought it’d have come up by now. Not that Michael’s going to take her to Sunday church, but surely she’s met a religious kid or parent through daycare. 

All of a sudden Michael’s jumping on the couch and shouting “I am Captain Bonesbeard and I will wipe you from my ocean!”

“Never!” Callie screams and pumps her tiny fist in the air. It’s so non-threatening that Ray almost laughs. But that would spoil the scene so instead he elbows Jack and then raises his arm to shout never. She follows a beat later, than the other three almost in unison. 

It’s a ridiculous riot of run after that. Ray’s had his moments of role playing for heists. They all have. But that’s always with an edge of dangerous thrill. It’s never been as purely fun as this.

The best moment is when Michael swoops in making swimming hand motions. Ray pretends to not see and Callie is actively ignoring everything except for her plotting with Jack. Michael curls an arm around Geoff and makes the same swimming motion with one hand as he walks backwards to the couch, his base of operations. “I have kidnapped your colleague, Mustachebeard!”

“His name is Salty Pete!” Callie shouts. Ray doesn’t miss Geoff’s muttered _that’s news to me_.

“His name is dog! He will be my pet!” Michael pushes Geoff to his hands and knees. Ballsy, to bank on Geoff not being willing to kill him in front of a preschooler.

“Nuh uh!” is Callie’s stellar retort. Gavin kneels and whispers in her ear. “What is your ransom?”

Ray’s expecting Michael to play hardball, say nothing, leave them to concoct a kidnapping back plan. Instead he gets imaginative, which makes sense. This kind of playing is probably good to expand her creative thinking. “I will exchange this mangy cur for two alligator tears and a potion of night vision.”

“Don’t do it Callie. Don’t help him. I’ll fight my way out.”

Ray could kick Geoff for being an idiot and ruining the creative flow. Luckily Callie doesn’t go for it. She shakes her head. “You don’t got your sword!”

Geoff pats his hips and makes a surprised face when he finds them empty.

“We’ll save you, I promise promise promise.” From there Callie leads them on an adventure of collecting tears. Turns out she proudly knows the difference between alligators and crocodiles, which is probably why Michael specified it. 

All of a sudden the lights flip a few times. Ray wonders if Michael’s suggesting sudden lightning storm, except then he speaks. “Five minutes and then dinner. Find a solution.”

He flicks the lights back on and returns to his place on the couch. The warning works well. Callie doesn’t pout, she just quickly helps Gavin find the potion in the shadow forest and exchanges their prizes -a sparkly cup and a purple plastic bottle- for Geoff.

“We have special guests, can we have a special table?”

“Go for it,” Michael answers. She squeals and runs out of the room. Michael watches her go with an expression on his face Ray’s never really seen before. Only once she’s gone and thuds can be heard across the house does he turn to them. “So now you assholes have to stay. She’ll be devastated if you don’t.”

Since Ray has a terrifying disinterest in leaving, this is fine with him. He takes his bandana off. He’s not exactly sure where it goes, but surely if he puts it in the basket on the floor of her closet she’ll find it and figure it out later? Everyone else follows his action, except for Geoff, who keeps Callie’s crown on like it’s his.

Callie’s sitting on the kitchen floor, legs kicked out in front of her. She has nail polish on her toenails. It kind of makes Ray want to stab himself in the throat, thinking about Michael taking her tiny foot in hand and applying it for her while they watch a Barbie movie or some shit. Jesus. He’s going to die before the night’s out, buzz or not, if he keeps imagining things he hasn’t actually seen. From what Ray can tell, ‘special table’ means a set table. Ray’s mildly shocked Michael owns napkins, but the evidence is messily folded in a pile beside Callie, drawer still open with a step stool beneath it.

“What’s a red fruit that’s a soup, sometimes?” Michael quizzes his daughter.

Callie looks up from the purple squares of fabric. “‘Matos!”

“Tomatos, you are a hundred percent correct. Give this girl two spoons!” Michael cheers. Ray hesitates on clapping a second too long and the moment is gone. Or at least Michael’s moved on, to grabbing a few cans and their opener. Callie is sing-songing the word ‘matos’ under her breath as she unfolds the top napkin and refolds it, paying careful attention to lining the edges together.

“How many chairs you need, squirt,” Geoff asks, gently nudging Callie’s hip with his toes. The movement is lightyears away from being an actual kick, and still Jack tugs him a step back from her. Their roles have reversed from earlier, apparently, because Ray doesn’t see the need for concern. He’s more interested in knowing he’s not the only one to have picked up on Michael’s counting thing.

“Daddy and me and Geoff and Gavin and Jack and Michael and Ryan,” Callie rambles, picking up the top napkin from the pile and putting it in a new pile with each name.

“What number’s that?”

“No, don’t wanna.”

“Callie Callipants,” Gavin tries. “Napkins it doesn’t matter. We can use our sleeves if there’s not enough, like this,” he makes a hugely exaggerated move and ends with shaking his head like a wet dog. Callie giggles and Gav smiles. “But chairs, woman! Think about our poor bums! If we don’t have the right number where will our bums go!”

“We’ll have to sit on top of each other, like Yertle the Turtle, and we’ll spill all the soup!”

Ray squeezes his eyes closed so tightly the blackness starts to sparkle with pops of colour, but when he opens his eyes everything still exists. Gavin’s still sitting on Jack’s lap to make his point, like touching is something they can just _do_ now, like Gavin didn’t hate her for leaving. Michael’s still making enough soup for seven people, like he cares about everyone in the room. Ryan’s still full of knowledge about kids picture books, which is enough to break anyone’s fucking brain. Then, to top it off, Geoff’s now letting Callie’s nimble hands tickle the underside of his foot. It’s all too much. Ray tilts his head at Jack towards the hallway, and then escapes to smoke another joint. It’s been over an hour since his last, and his smoke-shield’s been endlessly bombarded with the cute and the impossibly friendly. He needs to create a new one.

When he gets back, more’s going on than before. It’s not just multiple cans of soup in a huge pot that Michael’s cooking. He’s also thickly slicing bread and has tasked Ryan and Jack with shredding two different blocks of cheese. Cheddar and mozzarella, probably, though Ray’s taste buds aren’t refined enough to go much beyond brick cheese vs Kraft singles.

Ray isn’t generally a munchies kind of stoner. That shit’s for newbs, just like puking out a car window is for drinking newbs. Still the soup is rich and the garlic cheese toast is crunchy as fuck. It’s all delicious, even Geoff’s impressed. More important Callie eats her bowl and toast without complaint even though there isn’t anything artificial or novelty shaped on the menu. The closest dinner gets to being child friendly is a wacky straw. 

Next comes dessert. It’s kind of a scam, if you ask Ray. All it is is apple slices dipped in cinnamon and brown sugar. That’s practically healthy. But Callie likes it, and Geoff makes a big show of not being allowed any, and it’s not like it tastes bad.

“Can Uncle Geoff give me my bath?”

“No,” Michael says before Geoff gets a chance to declare himself one way or the other.

“Why not?”

“Go pick out your bubbles,” Michael redirects. Callie does what she’s told, and the second she’s out of earshot Michael turns on them. “Uncle?”

“What.”

Michael gestures violently. “ _Really_?”

Ray can tell that Geoff’s not going to take any crap before he says a single word. It’s all about the man’s stance. As in, he’s literally standing, chair tilting behind him but somehow stuck on his knees. Besides, it’s obvious. Geoff’s not the sort of person to offer things he doesn’t expect to be taken up on, whether it’s a steak dinner or a few kilos of cocaine to distribute. He’d never tell a kid to get familiar unless he actually meant it. 

“Fuck you, MLP. You can stay with your bullshit crew in this shithole, but if you think we’re not visiting you’re out of your goddamn mind. What else is she supposed to call old motherfuckers who drop in to give presents and hang out for a few days before going away again?”

Michael doesn’t have the chance to answer Geoff. Thank God, because who knows what the fuck the man would say. His mouth is open, but any rebuttal drops off his tongue and disappears like hot ash into the snow when Callie darts back in the kitchen. She’s not even close to bath ready. Not only is she completely dressed, she’s got a pile of picture books clutched to her chest.

“I picked out books for everyone to read me. One Fish Two Fish is Jack and If You Give A Mouse A Cookie is Gavin and-”

Michael cuts his daughter off. “What did I ask you to go do?”

“Pick out bubbles.”

“So where should you be right now?” Michael questions.

 

“The bathroom?”

“Good girl. Go.”

For the second time in five minutes Michael holds himself in until Callie disappears down the hall, and then explodes like his old self. A small explosion, thermite not nitroglycerin. “You guys kindly need to get the fuck out. Like _now_. She needs to start gearing down for bed. That’s not going to happen if you assholes are still here.”

Michael’s probably right. He’s her dad, after all. He knows if a handful of near-strangers are too distracting for her to settle down. Ray knows Michael’s probably right, and even if he wasn’t, it’s still his goddamn decision. They’re lucky he let them inside the house at all. He could have told them to fuck off, he left Los Santos because he didn’t want to see them, and that includes now. Shit, Michael could have told Callie to run out the back door and tell the neighbour to call 911 as he attempted to shoot them up. Ray’s buzzed, not brain dead, he knows they’ve already gotten the best case reaction. All he can fucking think is that it’s not fair. He doesn’t want to leave. Not now.

“But-”

Michael cuts Gavin off. “Yeah, I know. We’ve got stuff to talk about. You can come by while she’s at daycare tomorrow. That’ll give us six hours to say what we want to say. Callie!” 

Ray hears the pitter patter of running feet responding to the shout. Then there she is, with a new accessory this time. Callie’s got a shower cap pulled over the crown of her head. Her mass of curls explodes out in every direction from under the elastic edge. She barely stops herself before she barrels into Jack’s legs, then turns to face her dad. “I was picking, I promise!”

“I know. I trust you.” They’re big words coming from MLP, his personal ethics requiring him to mean it before he says it, unlike Geoff or Gavin or Jack. In this context it’s probably one of those feelings Callie’s daycare is trying to impress on the kids, that Michael has to model or whatever. Even if it’s not, his next statement most assuredly is. “My friends have to leave now. What should happen next?”

“If you like them and you feel safe and a grown up says it’s okay you hug hug hug!” Callie recites, stomping her foot with each piece of touching strangers etiquette. Or safety, maybe.

“You forgot one. There’s four, remember?” Michael shows his fingers while tucking in his thumb. “You want to, you feel safe, an adult says it’s safe, and...”

Callie stares at her dad, clearly clueless. Ray would be the smart kid that helps the floundering idiot in math class except he can’t actually figure out another rule. No one ever told him as a kid that it was okay to not want to hug aunts or grandparents. With brothers and a full complement of relatives, affection was generally dictated by his parents, not willingly given.

“And they say it’s okay for you to touch them,” Michael finishes.

“Oh yeah! Purse-null space bubble!”

Thanks to that, Callie goes through their horseshoe of people and asks each one for permission to hug. No one says no. Possibly because no one wants to get shot halfway down the block. Ray knows he would fire off. Not to the forehead or anything. But still, he would. You don’t say no to a kid this great without consequences.

It’s not until they’re in the stolen van that the child friendly veneer flakes off. Jack takes the wheel and peels away, of course. Geoff rides passenger, of course, which leaves Ray and Ryan and Gavin to ride the back benches, focusing on maintaining their balance as Jack does forty five. It’s a residential zone, Ray knows there’s at least one sign posted with a twenty mph limit, but Jack’s an incorrigible speed demon who treats every excursion like the pigs are chasing her. Or at least Ray’s focusing on not tumbling off the bench with each sharp turn. Gavin’s got his phone out, swearing profusely at whatever it is he’s doing with it. And then there’s Ryan. The man’s got a butterfly knife out, and he’s lightly scoring the creases of his palms, blood dotting up in a dozen different places where he pushes just a millimeter too deep. It’s disconcerting. They all love Ryan, or did. They all know how to deal with Vagabond, he’s fairly straightforward. It’s when the man gets lost between the two that it’s bad. Forcing the Vagabond, the man capable of torturing then killing his ex-boyfriend, to play with a toddler while wearing his Death Mask? In hindsight, so obviously bad it’s visible from space. Today wasn’t like the chosen half-lowering of a shield that Jack can coax into occuring when a job goes too long and Ryan needs a moment to breathe but Vagabond won’t inhale. Today was his tectonic plates shifting and grinding and leaving neither persona with stable ground. This right now is the man attempting to cope, pressure relieving itself through any fault line it can.

After about fifteen seconds Gavin moves from his place on Ray’s bench, across from Ryan, to sit on Ryan’s bench, as close to the door as he can without sitting on the floor. It’s easy to see why. Ryan’s being...unsettling, and it’d be much easier for him to lunge forward and break off a piece of Gavin than it would be to turn sideways and go for him. Gavin’s new position could give the Brit the few seconds he needs to bail out the back of the van.

“Well that sure as dicks wasn’t where I thought this day would end up,” Geoff says.

“Considering I spent this morning being kidnapped and transported, I gotta say I was planning on ending the day with breaking free and murdering at least one of you,” Gavin replies. Ray’s got no doubt he’s being literal.

“And instead Ray was right and you’ve been a shitty bitch for months for no reason.”

“Hey, fuck you, old-”

“Shut up both of you,” Jack orders. “Assholes. Do we want an under the radar hotel, or do we want a nice hotel?”

They go to the Luxor, because it’s not like they can’t afford a five star room with a view of the Strip. The ridiculous extravagance of the exterior is enough to perk Gavin up a little, by the time they’re checking in his glinting smile matches his polarised sunglasses perfectly. It says something about what’s happened today that when Jack orders a double queen Tower Deluxe room, no one adds on, or protests. Michael’s not even back in their lives yet and it’s already enough to let them sleep three and two, not in five separate rooms.

The hotel room is all golds and maple wood. Ray closes the heavy silk curtains because professional snipers have nervous ticks just like athletes or surgeons, and then turns back around. In the few moments he’s been busy pulling ties, his ex-crew have staked claims. On the bed closer to him are Gavin and Jack. The former is laying down, swinging his sunglasses in slow circles by one arm. The latter has the remote control and is already flicking through the channels, though the volume is off. Ryan’s at the desk tucked between the second bed and the bathroom wall. The knife’s away now but the way he’s staring into the mirror without really seeming to connect is eerie. 

Geoff comes out of the bathroom and puts their duffle -probably missing a weapon or two deposited in the bathroom- on the stack of pillows behind Jack. Ray sees what this is. He’ll have to be the one sleeping beside Ryan. Not a hardship normally -Geoff’s the drooler and Jack kicks- but potentially unsettling when Ryan’s disconnecting. It’ll be even worse if he stays up all night staring. For Geoff to pick kicky Jack over quiet sleepers... It might be a fend for yourself, last man gets eaten thing. Or maybe Geoff knows Ray and Ryan have seen each other since the break up and he’s assuming that means something to Ryan, even when he’s in this kind of mood. Well, Ray guesses he better fucking embrace it. It’s not like four people will fit in a bed, and who says showing Ryan fear will help? Ray tosses himself onto the queen and starfishes.

“I need a shave,” Geoff announces.

Ray looks up in interest. Geoff plays with facial hair the way some girls play with makeup; a signature look for six months then all of a sudden the red lipstick’s being tossed and it’s all about winged eyeliner. Probably shouldn’t know those looks, but sometimes Ray likes to watch makeup tutes stoned. So what? They remind him of Gavin’s ASMR and Ryan’s under mask look. The girls talk lowly, and sweetly, and smear their skin with colour. The tutorials make Ray ache, and the weed makes the ache feel merely like getting buried in sand, a gritty pressure on every side of him, rather than the way everything feels like a tsunami otherwise. It’s the best of a bad situation. Or it was, at least. At this point Ray’s on the verge of dangerous, dangerous hope that things will change when they go home to Los Santos, and he won’t have to torture himself with reminders of the good old days.

“What are you gonna go for?” Ray asks when no one else does. Normally it’d be Michael’s job. Complimenting people’s new shoes/hair/jacket/whatever has always been Michael’s thing. Jack doesn’t care about appearance. Not because she’s a woman trying to be as masculine as five men, that’d be bullshit. She’s just the kind of person who thinks whatever comes out of the laundry basket first is what should be worn that day, and that 1920’s flapper hats go with everything. Jack might not be the last to notice a change in hairstyle, but she’d be the last to care. Gavin cares about style, despite his own being gaudy and ridiculously expensive trash-wear. He’s just not going to make the effort of pretending to care about someone else’s look. And if Ray had to guess, Ryan’s going to be mute the rest of the evening. He had to play with a toddler and be friendly for hours while wearing his Vagabond mask. That probably did a number to his typical dissociation instinct.

“Not sure yet. But I’m done with this scruffy shit.”

Ray hums neutral agreement at Geoff as he gives up the struggle to keep his neck strained and his head off the pillow. The moustache and beard was a surprise this morning, though far secondary to Gavin secured to a chair. When they were in the midst of breaking up Geoff was clean shaven, not even a soulpatch. The beard’s not a bad look, he wouldn’t call it shit. But Geoff is not the kind of man to be talked out of drastic changes. It’s entirely possible he’ll walk out of the hotel bathroom with a shaved head.

Gavin waits less than ten minutes before joining Geoff. Ray saw that coming from a mile away and he highly doubts Ryan and Jack didn’t. The only thing more inevitable is the echoing klang that rings out a bit after Gavin’s departure. Ray would bet every cent he has that Geoff just shoved Gavin into the bathtub. Not that Gavin is protesting. Ray doesn’t need to be in the room to know that the rapid, unending follow up thuds are Plan G wrestling their way to orgasm. 

The unstated truth is that Gavin likes submitting. As long as he gets to put up enough of a struggle to keep his cred, Gavin Free is secretly all about eating krev. The duration of how long he feels like he has to fight before letting himself take a dive changes depending on the day’s or week’s events. Considering how long it’s been since their last happy group fuck, pre-disappearance, it’s going to be a while before Gav’s got his aggression out. Honestly, Geoff and Gavin might not even get to the fucking portion of the venting. They used to humour Gav to get him to that place. But as pissed as Gavin’s been these last months, Geoff’s probably been too. There’s no way he’s going to eat shit for Gavin’s benefit.

Ray hears the click of the bathroom door opening, and one set of shuffling feet. He doesn’t roll on his side to check which one of them it is. Ray hasn’t moved an inch since Gav joined Geoff, and he’s not alone. He can tell by the flickers through his mostly closed eyes that Jack is still channel surfing. Fuck only knows what’s going on in Ryan’s head, but he’s still at the desk.

“Any of you assholes have a splint on you?”

Geoff, then. It’s an interesting enough entrance that Ray does Geoff the favour of opening his eyes and turning his head. Bossman’s got a Fu Manchu now, sort of. Shorter than the title implies, but just as square. “Seriously?”

“Gavin broke my goddamn finger, would you rather I didn’t fucking set it?”

“Call front desk,” Ray suggests. “They might have first aid shit.”

Jack offers a different suggestion, one that rings of her efficiency. “Just wait ‘til morning. I bet you anything Michael has a bathroom cupboard full of stuff.”

Geoff has only just begun to mutter about what a stupid plan that is when Gavin walks out of the bathroom. Unlike Geoff, Gavin’s naked, if you don’t count the foot thick mound of hair on his chest. There’s still an outline of fingers on his neck. Wide swatches of his skin, especially his arms and back and ass, are red from being slapped around. He’ll probably have the same pressure bruises tomorrow Ray has now.

Jack ignores Geoff to ask yet another pertinent question, probably her fiftieth of the day. “So... we need to make a clothes run? Or did they come off unscathed?” 

“More or less,” Geoff answers for Gavin.

“We might need to make one anyway. How long are we staying here?”

“As long as it takes to make him come home,” Ryan says coldly. Unless it’s still the Vagabond taking point. It’s hard to tell when Ryan’s tone intimates that he’ll erect great walls around Las Vegas, let every tourist starve to death and burn every home to the ground, kill millions if necessary, all to get Michael to leave. As far as first words go, they’re as unsettling as the slicing his own palm thing was.

In an effort to ease the room’s tension Gavin attempts to change the conversation. “We’re not staying _here_ , are we?”

Geoff makes his customary sideways scoffing face. It’s answer enough for them all; Ray sits up and Jack clicks the television off. Maybe they’re all more attuned to Boss Geoff than they’d like to think. Ray doesn’t have a problem with that. He’s not one of the ones who wanted to leave FAHC. 

A brief wait sees Gav dressed and Jack in a different button up pulled from the small front zippered pocket of the duffle. Compressing personal items into a miniscule amount of space must be a skill you pick up trucking. As a group they exit the room they just rented and head to the elevators together. Gavin notes where the camera is and subtly gestures to it for all their benefit. Good on him, because Ray’s got an idea security won’t approve of if they lip read it.

“I’m going out to snipe. Anyone else interested?” 

It’s a genuine offer but he’s not surprised that no one takes him up on it. Jack loves gambling. It’s like the best kind of planning; reward with none of the risk a heist imposes. There’s no way she’d trade high stakes poker for reasonless shooting. Gavin says something about bevs, which Ray doesn’t doubt, just wonders what else might join the liquor. Maybe nothing. If recent behaviour was just coping, not addiction, Gavin should be over it at this point, since all the shit he had to cope with is proven unfounded.

He offers a second time, once they’re all in the parking lot. Everyone’s got eyes on a different car to break into, even Jack, who has to stay on the Strip. Ray’s the only outlier, he needs to go to their van first. “Sure about your plans? Last chance before I take all the guns.”

Only Ryan even answers him. “I’m thinking about something more hands on.”

Ray leaves it at that. Maybe Ryan’s about to mop up what’s left of the tracks that got them to Michael. Or he could just want to rinse himself of the saccharine sweetness today has been by beating a few people to death. Ray can’t blame the guy. His sniping is going to help himself in the same way. Some perspective needs to be gotten before they’re building Michael a white picket fence around his sweet suburban house.

***

It’s simultaneously easier and harder to stride up Michael’s sidewalk a second time. On one hand, Ray knows they won’t have to murder their ex-boyfriend and deal with how that feels. On the other, at least that was a plan. It was a foreseeable outcome to the situation presented. This time around he’s got no clue about what’s about to go down. How do you have a rational conversation about the future when at least three bodies dropped last night because there were too many strong feelings?

When Jack knocks, Michael doesn’t just open the door. He moves all the way outside, forcing them to take a few steps backwards to maintain distance. Ray’s not sure if it’s a powerplay of some kind, but he is sure Geoff will think it is. Ray doesn’t give that much thought though. That’s Geoff’s problem. Possibly Jack’s, if she has to get between them to prevent them going at it. Ray doesn’t do brawls, they all know it, and even if the simple action creates tension, it won’t be bullet levels, which is where he does come in.

Michael looks good in the sunlight. It’s probably afternoon sun for him. Michael’s probably been up for hours, since he has to drive Callie to daycare. For the rest of them it’s the glinting morning sun of a brand new day. Gambling and shooting and beating and drinking went on a bit late into the night. Not to mention after Ray had mostly drifted off he’d sleepily heard the noises of Jack screwing at least one of them. Ray didn’t care enough to go join the party, but he’s got half an urge to make out with Michael right now. Callie’s gone, at daycare or whatever, so Ray doesn’t have to worry about reining in his sex drive to prevent things from getting creepy. A relief. Unlike setting up the perfect murder, Ray doesn’t much like restraining himself when it comes to sex. He shoots from far away but he oogles up close.

Rather than invite everyone inside, Michael subtly pushes them out further, far enough that he can sit on the edge of his porch. Without talking about it, they arrange themselves around the man. Ray lounges on the lawn, arms behind him to prop him up so uneven ground doesn’t dig into his bruises. Gavin crowds in beside his boi, any remnants of Gavin’s turmoil about the past having been fucked out by Geoff. Jack takes Michael’s other side, but up one stair. Geoff and Ryan remain standing.

“You often wear your jacket under full noon sun while contemplating your fresh cut grass?” Geoff asks. It’s a taunt, everyone knows it for what it is. Ray still doesn’t much care. Might do Geoff and Michael some good to throw down. It won’t end in sex the way Geoff and Gavin’s confrontation did, Geoff and Michael’s dynamic isn’t the same. But it probably will end in splitting a 24 of Seagrams wine coolers, some bottles for drinking, some to press against swelling. For those two, that’s just as cathartic.

Michael raises his eyebrows. “Sunglasses. Mask. Tuxedo. You tryna tell me you’re not geared up?”

Ray laughs, startling the sombre group. As a few of them stare he comments, “what? It’s not like he’s wrong.” 

“Fine, we’ll all take it down a peg.” Geoff slips his jacket off and drapes it over the back of the gritty looking plastic lawn chair situated on the porch, then looks pointedly at Jack. After a second she shrugs and unbuttons her Hawaiian print overshirt. Ryan follows the parade, he pulls his mask off. Probably a good thing. Ray doubts this is going to be a hostile business battle and the last thing they need is to push Ryan into another dissociative fit by making the Vagabond be nice again.

When Michael takes off his jacket no one looks to Gavin. No one considers the possibility that Gavin’s in professional mode and needs to chill out. Instead everyone looks at Ray. He’s only wearing a t-shirt, but wardrobe’s never been the professional armour Ray uses. He works his ab muscles long enough to stay half reclined but show his palms, jazz hands style. “Hey, I didn’t bring any guns.” 

They seem kinda floored, which is stupid. Obviously the plan’s no longer ‘execute Michael’. Why would he need a gun?

“You lazy fuckers probably haven’t eaten, right?” Michael asks after a few minutes of relaxing in the sun. It’s nothing close to any of the conversations they need to have, but Ray hardly minds putting that off. From second to second he can’t decide if he’s hopeful or expecting ruin, kidding himself or realistic. This many borderline people needing to discuss serious shit- who wouldn’t want to put that off with conversation about breakfast habits?

“Is it really considered lazy fuckery if I was up until six am having orgasms and still woke up in time for this meeting?” Jack asks, hint of a smirk on her face.

“Yeah, we get it. You’re multi-orgasmic. Congratulations,” Ryan mutters. 

“I’d take some waffles,” Gavin says.

“Did I fuckin’ offer waffles? I have cereal and milk like a normal person. Do you want it, or do you want to starve?”

Gavin reaches across Michael and pokes him in the blackly bruised cheekbone. “Make me waffle, boi?”

Michael shoves Gavin brutally. The Brit goes tumbling face first into the grass and nearly breaks his nose, only twisting to relative safety in the last instants. Michael smirks with satisfaction, then stands. “Well, if no one’s going to pop me in the face this time, might as well come in.”

Despite the strong reaction, the first thing Michael does when they get inside the blue painted room is pull open a lower cupboard with a crooked foot and point with his toes at a waffle maker. He doesn’t do anything else but Geoff starts to take care of it while the rest of them make a U around the table.

It’s a standard four waffle grill. Geoff rips the first batch in two sections. He gives one to Ryan and keeps the other himself. When Ray was a kid with a family the cook always ate last, if only to still be eating while the others had to wash the dishes. Geoff either doesn’t mind cleaning or doesn’t care if he leaves a mess.

As soon as Ray and Jack get theirs, second batch, Ray pour out about half a gallon of syrup on. Geoff’s shunned it because it’s not the thousand bucks a jar Canadian shit but Ray’s just fine with junk brand imitation crap. Tastes like sugar and chemicals, just like he likes it. Tastes legitly great, actually. For the second time in three meals Ray is eating in Michael’s kitchen and there’s no question that last evening’s soup and today’s waffles are better than last night’s street meat.

Gavin and Michael are last. Geoff’s definitely making a point about not giving whiny Gavin what he wants. Ray’s not sure about Michael. There might still be a thing, or it might have just worked out that way. Someone has to be second last. Michael takes a heaping spoonful of icing sugar -a tablespoon at least- and dumps it onto his waffles. The powder plumes up and makes a mess on the placemat when it settles, but Michael doesn’t seem to give a shit, so whatever.

The table is quiet as they eat, Ryan’s methodical bites making him finish his waffles about the same time as Gavin, who’s inhaling his. It’s a throwback to the occasional times they all got up in rapid succession and ate together. Ray doesn’t want to think about it being the last time this ever happens, but there’s no denying that not a drop of sarcasm spills out of his mouth just in case this is the time he has to remember. He focuses on the details like he’s a toking newb stuck in sensory overload; the way Gav’s non-stop jiggling leg rubs against his stationary one every few passes, Jack’s prominent cleavage in the tank top she wears under her currently abandoned button up, Michael’s newest tattoo. Everyone’s bruises. Everybody has visible bruises except Ryan, who Ray knows has a wound under his jeans. Jack must have scored hers last night. It’s proof that Ray was born for this type of life that he finds each smear of blue-purple sexy. Alluring, even. He wants to taste them all.

“I don’t get why we have to leave.” 

The rippling of the air is almost audible as everyone turns to look at Jack. She has her knife and fork crossed over the center of her plate, and fuck only knows what barrage of expressions she’s getting -Ray’s not looking away from her to gauge the room- but she faces them all with complete calm.

“I mean it. Three of us don’t even have contacts in Los Santos anymore.”

“Speak for yourself,” Gavin demands. He’s only saying it because everyone knows she’s referring to him, even if Jack hasn’t said his name. Gav might still have a phone full of numbers for drugs or hookers, but he doesn’t have anyone that would work to his goals. Unlike some of them, he burned a lot of bridges when they broke up.

“I am,” Jack replies, not a scrap of her raising to the bickering Gav will want to start. “Everyone knows I picked up trucking. No one would answer if I called. And Ryan, Ray, tell me you couldn’t just as easily kill here.”

Ray looks back down, staring at the smudges of leftover syrup as though he can read them like tea leaves.

“Well I don’t get why he has to stay,” Gavin retorts.

“He told us yesterday,” Ryan mutters. Ray has to agree. Doesn’t the asshole ever listen? Or fuck listening, since that’s not really Gavin’s style. Wasn’t getting knocked off the step the first time proof enough of Michael’s commitment to Callie?

Gavin rolls his eyes. He twists to face Michael, ignoring the rest of the table. “I know what you said yesterday. Guess bloody what? Your strategy failed. You’re in as crap of a situation here as you are at home when it comes to weapons and violence. Worse. Here your crew doesn’t give a shit. In Los Santos not only would all of us take a bullet for you, Kerry or Matt would practically pay for the honour.”

Ray realises in a cringing flash that his earlier nerves about not knowing what was going to happen were pathetic feelings. It’s become pretty clear shit all is going to happen. This is textbook stalemate. This could be the dictionary definition of stalemate. No one’s offering alternatives to Go or Stay, and everyone has a clear opinion on those two options. Therefore, there’s no point to this conversation. This isn't politics, the lone vote can’t be drowned out by majority vote. This isn’t Los Santos politics, bribes won’t work here. This isn’t a heist, everyone can’t just capitulate to Geoff. There is a snowball’s chance in hell they’ll be able to talk each other into anything. The percentage of pissing each other off to the point of brawling is a lot higher than being able to talk it out.

Ryan must also be feeling the uselessness of this debate. He attempts to change the conversation before Gavin can spur everyone into sniping or Jack can get entrenched in repeating her cool logic until everyone listens. “So... tell me more about this Teacher Addy.” 

It’s an innocuous voice and literally everyone knows better. Ray might not know how this woman is going to die; bullets or shrapnel or knuckles, but he knows that it’s going to happen, and soon. Geoff’s the only one who could exercise the authority to make Ryan stop full bore, and he’s just chugging chocolate milk directly from the carton.

Except then there’s Michael. The man seems to be making a run at stopping Ryan in his tracks. “You are not killing Callie’s favourite daycare teacher just because she gave a child friendly reason for why lung cancer sucks.”

“It wasn’t child friendly.”

“Don’t fuckin’ do it!” Michael shouts, finger pointed.

“Michael-” Jack starts and immediately gets yelled at.

“They’d probably close down to cope with their fuckin’ feelings and then I’d be fucked. And she’d be sad because she loves that place.”

“She’s three! She loves dirt!” Ryan shouts.

“Lemme fuckin’ show you how you are talking out of your fucking ass, you fuckin’ moron.” 

The aggression quickly fades after Michael retrieves his iPad and slaps on the table. It’s a website comprised of photos, or at least this page is. Michael flips through them, pausing longer on the photos that feature Callie. Measuring dyed rice, climbing a play structure, fingerpainting; she’s happy in all of them. Of course it’s propaganda -the staff wouldn’t take pictures of upset kids- but it’s still nice.

“Look at this series,” Michael directs, like they’re not all entranced already. Ray thought he’d get a break on the unnerving amount of cute, what with her being gone and all, but Callie’s got a tulle veil thingy over her face and it’s insane. “The kids made costumes and put on a play about the bad guys Sad and Mad and how Happy the Hero turned them good. It took a week and the amount of skills it friggin’ included... If anyone does shit to Adalind I will chop their fuckin’ hand off with a machete.”

Geoff smirks. “You heard the man.”

“So this is nice and all, but what’s the website’s security?” Gavin asks, abruptly frowning. “There’s a lot of sickos out there.”

“Any page with pictures is password protected. You find out the password when you register your kid.”

“Uh huh,” Gavin says. His tone reveals not a lot of confidence in a web admin who’s also a professional child minder. Ray is suddenly sure Gavin’s going to spend the rest of the afternoon figuring out who the parents are and setting up the site so that it crashes the OS of anyone looking who’s not on that list. And that’s if he doesn’t get the bug to contact the cops. Gavin might not like the pigs but no one on the planet likes the kind of man who trolls for pics of preschoolers.

The thing that Ray wants most in the world- Okay so the two things he wants most are hydraulic shoulders that take the weight of an anti-materiel rifle without sacrificing it to the immobility of a stand and a kush strain named after him known worldwide. But those aren’t plausible at all, really. The thing Ray wants that he’s actually in a position to get is Michael beside him when he wakes up. He’s only got a brief window of time in which he can relive the experience, there’s no telling when the tenuous peace they’ve currently established will blow up thanks to one of them saying something obnoxious. But right now Ryan’s distracted everyone fantastically, and Ray can have Michael’s awful morning breath in his face if he sets it up correctly.

To get ‘wake up’ first they need to go to sleep. Unfortunately they’re not kids, so a mid-day nap is generally out of the question. Thing is, Michael is a sleepy-comer. Notoriously so. He once fell asleep in a public bathroom after some random gave him a blumpkin. Geoff giggled for weeks. All Ray has to do is get the bastard to orgasm and he’ll be napping like a motherfucker.

“Hey. Can I talk to you for a second?” Ray puts his hand on Michael’s arm to make it obvious who he means.

“The fuck do you have to say that can’t be said in front of us?” Gavin demands.

“How about you lost the right to demand transparency when you broke up with us because we had different reactions to Michael’s death. Meanwhile _you_ plotted the deaths of about thirty people and didn’t ask for help,” Geoff answers.

“How about fuck-”

Michael interrupts what’s sure to be a Gavin style rant, all absurd insults and made up slang. “Private talk would be great.”

Michael only takes him as far as the living room. It’s most likely within eavesdropping radius, not that Ray can know for sure. He probably does agree with his boi that whatever Ray has to say should be heard by everyone, just didn’t want to get between Gavin and Geoff. No skin off Ray’s nose. He really only wanted far enough from the kitchen to encounter a surface without handles or magnets or other clutter. The living room more than suits those parameters.

“So. What? State of affairs at home? It’s pretty obvious you guys fell apart. Personal statement of how much my choices fucked you because you didn’t quite get it off your chest in the group rant yesterday? Or-”

“Are you done, man?” Ray cuts him off.

“Sure. Tell me yourself.”

“I’ve missed fucking around with you.”

“What?”

Michael looks fucking boggled, which only makes Ray want to laugh. He doesn’t, just in case the guy takes it as a You Just Got Punkd laugh, not a comment on his reaction. No sense in fucking himself by pissing off Michael before he gets what he wants. “Yeah, didn’t think that’d make your list of possibilities.”

“So you-”

There’s no point in Michael restating what Ray’s just said, and Ray knows he will if he lets him. Michael likes concrete situations. Like Jack does, like Ray does. Except Ray doesn’t need Michael to waste time making sure he heard correctly, he needs them to get to the dicks portion of the afternoon. So he moves them along. “Anyone you care about that I’ll have to murder when they come at me for fucking you?”

“Was that like you asking me if I’m dating anyone? Because if so you’re pretty bad at it.”

“Me asking implies I give a shit if you’re happy with whoever. I don’t. I wanna know if after I convince you to cheat some piece of shit’s gonna come at me and get their skull busted into fragments.” He’s a hypocrite, he knows. Back in the day, all their bedwarmers fled when they hooked up as a sixsome, scared that the top criminals of Los Santos would get jealous and need to prove their relationship dominance. Now Ray’s going to be the homebreaker, and he’s entirely prepared to murder the shit out of Michael’s boyfriend or girlfriend for daring to think they have the right to an unbreached relationship. He’s a fuckin’ hypocrite with the best of them, and he just couldn’t give less of a shit.

“Wow, you sure are great with seduction,” Michael says flatly.

Ray shrugs. “I’m not trying yet.”

“I told you assholes yesterday, no one’s been to this house.”

Ray’s not sure if that means Michael’s been celibate, or if he’s had one night stands he didn’t bother to take further than a bathroom or a car. Either way it’s enough for his interrogational purposes. Ray doesn’t wait another second before grabbing Michael and pulling him in close for a savage kiss. Michael hasn’t said yes yet, but his no’s are very explosive. Ray will know in a matter of seconds if Michael’s not into this, probably by a nose torrenting blood if he’s not.

Michael participates heartily. If his tongue didn’t know the shape of Ray’s every tooth before it does now. He even grabs Ray’s ass. It’s when they break the kiss for a moment that he seems more hesitant.

“This is only going to make you miss me more.”

Michael’s not saying it out of cockiness. He’s not modest about his prowess but he’s not Jack or Gavin either, two people defined by excessive bragging when it comes to coming. Michael just knows how Ray works. Before they all started dating Ray was the only one who refused to sleep with the same hooker multiple times in case he formed a bond. His nostalgia factor is too high to commit lightly.

“Yeah. I know.” It’s never not fucked Ray up when Ryan’s bruises fade away and he’s alone again. But Ray knows what he wants in the moment, and that’s to get Michael to nap with him. Maybe he’s kidding himself, but right now that sounds like closure.

“Fuck it?” Michael asks.

“Fuck it,” Ray confirms.

Michael walks backwards to the couch, taking Ray with him via hands cupped around his asscheeks. He stops only when he can’t go back any further and that’s when he sits. Ray scrambles to maintain contact, choosing straddling rather than side by side. More direct contact that way. Folding his legs on either side of Michael isn’t the most comfortable of positions. The fronts of his shins are dipping into the cracks between the middle and left and right cushions. All of his weight is on his calves, otherwise known as one of the places Ray has horizontal bruises from Ryan pushing him into the staircase. Ray doesn’t begin to consider repositioning. This way Michael’s hands are on his ass. This way it’s far easier to hike up Michael’s t-shirt and lave at what’s always been one of his most sensitive sweet spots, his collarbone. Personally none of Ray’s protruding bones are hotspots for him, not his collarbones or his ribs or his toes. He doesn’t have to understand it to use it, though. He’ll give Michael's chest as much attention as it wants, because the way Michael squirms underneath him is worth any action. And when he finally goes back to kissing him he can at least play with his nipples.

“We thought this was what we were missing.” 

It’s Ryan’s voice but Gavin is with him. Despite Michael turning his head from their kissing and dropping his hands from their very important squeezing business, Ray doesn’t feel cockblocked. By far the most likely scenario is Gavin and Ryan joining in. He’s never said no to more bodies. As long as he still gets what he wants in the end, why not bring others into it?

Ray’s half right. Neither man takes their shirt off or starts kissing their necks but Ryan drops onto the right cushion and Gavin the left. Their thighs tuck against Ray’s legs, a little closer than they’d need to be if they were just looking for a soft place to rest post hard wooden kitchen chair. They want to watch, then. Watch, and listen, and whatever other non-hands on senses can get involved. Scent, maybe? Ray has to assume he smells, because the three of them all do. Gavin like his normal 1872 cologne, Michael like leather conditioner, Ryan like hotel shampoo.

The most hands on either of them get are when Ryan pulls off his sock and works his fingers up the hem of Ray’s jeans. A moment later Ryan starts lightly playing with his ankle. Ray clenches his hands on Michael shoulders, fitfully, as he wonders how rough Ryan might get. If Ryan pinches hard enough to bruise it’ll be a bitch to get shoes on his feet for the next week. Ray doesn’t even consider asking Ryan to stop. He’s the bedroom director genius and he’s not wrong about the anticipation of roughness making Ray more aroused.

Eventually it gets to be too much for Michael. First base can contain him no longer. In about three seconds they go from mutual power lewd kisses to Michael getting dominant. He surges up only to push Ray over diagonally. Not the most comfortable position, considering where his legs are, but Ray lets him. If Michael’s got an idea, Ray’s not about to put his foot down.

Everything’s all awkward angles for a minute, before they both settle. Ray ends up with his legs on Ryan, and his shoulders on Gavin and his ass on the middle cushion. Michael’s still mostly just kissing him, but Ray can’t help but think frottage. It would be fucking fantastic to grind up into his bombman. He just wants to come all over Michael’s fucking hip, while he’s clenching finger shaped bruises into his skin.

Suddenly Ray feels knees in his back. Before he has a chance to react to the adjusted surface, Gavin is bucking him up, not to mention Michael on top of him. Ray can’t keep his balance and thanks to Gavin’s sloped thighs on his back he tips down, not up.

“Gavin!” Michael shouts with fury.

“Gavin. You asshole,” Ryan agrees.

“I’m helping! Ray gets it.”

Ray does get it. Or at the very least he’s working with the sudden movement, the way he would when he’s on the job and his targets rearrange themselves with no warning. With them both on their sides now, he’s only really got one hand, but it’s easier to get it in between their bodies. Michael’s zipper is down in a flash, and then Ray takes care of his own. Ray curls his fingers around Michael’s cock about in unison with Michael doing the same to him. Give or take a few seconds, but time doesn’t need to be on point right now. He’s not on a roof calculating the best moment to glack someone, he’s touching and being touched.

They’ve been going at it for a bit when something small drops down onto his hip, then slips to land on the floor. Ray doesn’t take immediate precautions; doesn’t roll away or scramble for cover or shield his eyes. He’s not in Brownman mode so his first thought isn’t bomb. And good thing too, since Michael declares it a condom about three seconds later, and it’d suck to look like a paranoid moron. That said, he’s got trajectories in his soul. He already knows from which height and angle the packet’s been thrown before he twists to look for the culprit.

The missing pair of exes are both standing where Ray knew someone would be. His inner sniper is _always_ right. He can’t be sure who tossed it though, Geoff or Jack. Both seem like strong possibilities. On the one hand there’s Jack’s sex drive and her brilliant efficiency. On the other hand, there’s the way Geoff has near precognition for how people are going to act. Or maybe they came up with it together, when they were both still in the kitchen, doing whatever it was that was keeping them. Ray wasn’t sure if Jack and Geoff were going to join at all, but he’s happy to see them. Everyone here together makes this even closer to the good old times. 

Jack and Geoff squeeze in with Gavin and Ryan on the couch while Ray pulls Michael’s jeans down far enough that Michael can wriggle them completely off. His cock swings heavily as he twitches his hips from side to side to get the denim off, and Ray wants it. Not just as a means to an end anymore, he genuinely, desperately wants all of Michael. And everyone knows. He knows they do. Ray could feel like an exhibit at the zoo the way the four are watching avidly while he rolls Michael over and starts playing with his ass. The potential’s there. Really he just eats it up. There are so many things they could be doing to each other, but they’re all satisfied just watching. It’s a high fucking compliment.

Ray would guess that Michael owns lube. Even if he’s being honest about not bringing anyone home why in god’s name would Michael have stopped getting himself off? Ray didn’t and he was arguably the most broken up. Gavin’s the only contender for the His Death Fucked Me Up title and Gavin not only didn’t stop, he swung a hard left to as many encounters as his refractory period could allow. So Ray’s right, he’s sure he is. But he doesn’t want to break the mood by asking, and Michael’s not offering. So Ray spreads Michael’s cheeks and hocks the wettest bomb of spit he can into Michael’s crack, then sticks his fingers to the back of his throat to coat them in thicker saliva.

It isn’t the easiest way to bang in the world, but everyone in the room knows Michael doesn’t want it to be. Ray might like a bit of pain but that doesn’t make him the better candidate for this. Michael likes being overwhelmed by sensation. Getting fucked with only a lubricated condom to guide the way is nothing if not overwhelming.

Michael loves it. Ray’s not sure how many of them would, but there’s no question about their redhead. With each thrust Michael grunts and pushes his body backwards to meet him. Between Michael’s enthusiasm and the appreciative audience of people Ray knows he still loves -despite that nostalgia being self harming as shit- Ray’s stamina takes a hard hit. He comes before Michael, grinding his face into Michael’s sweaty back. It just won’t do, for sex etiquette reasons, not merely because it fucks with his plan. Michael deserves to get his own. Rather than pulling out and knotting the condom up Ray stays where he is, dick softening inside the man. At least this way Michael can remain stretched and full as Ray does a quick reach around.

Smaller spoon is not Michael’s forte. Trying to insist on it would only rouse him from his post orgasmic stupor. Instead Ray rolls onto his side so he’s facing everyone's feet. He only has to scooch back a little before Michael gets the idea through his drowsey skull and grabs him in close. Ray happily goes with Michael’s pull, just like he did twenty minutes ago when it was towards the couch. Manhandling is sexy enough to be enjoyed aesthetically when the arousal meter’s on empty. And there, in Michael’s arms, he falls asleep.

Ray wakes up stomach down, face buried in the carpet, neck a bit cricked from the weird angle his head’s been forced into. Oh, and naked, don’t forget about that. He’s buckass nude. He wakes up and it’s like popping the cartridge into the gun at the exact right break in fire. Relief, and excitement, and a vague awareness that his crew have been doing things he hasn’t paid attention to, but knowing they’ve got his back. It’s a beautiful feeling, like enough so to paint or some shit. Definitely enough to occasionally propel Brownman onto the street during a heist rather than stay on his rooftop, despite that being his best skillset. Normally merely waking up isn’t enough to cause such a feeling, or rather it didn’t used to be. But after months of waking up alone how can he be anything but excited? 

Michael’s on his side, half curled over him, flaccid dick against Ray’s hip. He’s still sleeping soundly, Ray can feel each rhythmic inhale and exhale. The rest of the crew is still in the room too. He doesn’t turn his head to scan the room for them, not willing to risk waking up Michael, but he doesn’t really need to. Ray can hear Jack and Gavin’s quiet conversation about Game of Thrones, and Geoff and Ryan wouldn’t leave.

Ray would bet fifty grand that at least two of them have figured out he’s awake, if not more, but no one tries to interfere with him. He’s grateful as shit because he doesn’t want to talk or mess around, he just wants to feel this situation. Every goddamn second of it.

Unfortunately, it can’t last forever. Michael yawns, sits up, and immediately launches into bitchery, because that is his way. “Which asshole let me fall asleep on the goddamn carpet?”

“Technically Ray’s fault,” Ryan offers drily.

“It feels like I bruised my hip.”

“What are you, seventy?”

“We all apologize on Brownman’s behalf, and promise to let you have the comfy middle of the bed for at least a week when we get home,” Gavin offers magnanimously. Ray can practically see Gavin plucking a tophat off his head and sweeping it in Michael’s direction for the amount of grandeur his tone imbues the in actuality small favour with.

Michael does not take Gavin’s offer well. He doesn’t only reject it, he goes about ten steps further. “All of you get the fuck out!”

Ray can tell Michael means it. His face is purpling with anger and his fingers are curled into fists. The only thing missing is Michael standing up, getting into a power pose. It’s not the nudity thing, Ray’s confident in ruling that out. None of them are modest to begin with, but any semblance of propriety goes out the window when emotions take over. There’s something else keeping Michael on the floor, and there’s surely an internal logic for it, like Gavin calmly upping his chances of successfully bailing from a moving car rather than letting Ryan stab him. Ray doesn’t know what this particular logic path is, but he’s pretty sure he’s better off standing up and gathering his clothes. Jeans first. If he has to bolt, it’ll draw less attention to be wearing only jeans than only a t-shirt.

Geoff’s either less intelligent, or more certain he can talk Michael down. He doesn’t make any effort to escape the situation. Instead he invests by asking for an explanation. “What?”

And then there’s Jack at the same time, starting what could either be a placation or an admonition. “Dude-”

“Now!” Michael pulls a gun from under the couch to punctuate his demand. Ray hasn’t seen a thumbprint activated hidden safe in a while, but evidently there’s one wedged in between the springs of the sofa.

It’s not the sudden escalation that gets Ray. They’re all have short fuses. It’s that Michael found somewhere to stash a gun for emergencies despite having a child, and he’s pulling it now because of them, in Callie’s home. Ray didn’t even strap up when they left the hotel today, too uncomfortable with a weapon in her space.

“You can’t talk me into leaving her, and you can’t fuck me into it either!” Michael shouts at Gavin. It doesn’t make the most amount of sense, considering Ray was the one to do the fucking, but the level of logic doesn’t matter when Michael’s mad enough to actually shoot them.

“Get the. Fuck. Out. How many more times do you think I’m going to say it?!” Michael bellows. 

Another person and that’d be a rhetorical question. Not from Michael. He’s genuinely asking them to consider how many more times he says the same thing before he’s got no choice but to riddle them with bullets. From his tone, Ray’s guessing this is Michael’s last benevolent repeat. He circles Michael with wide berth to get nearer the couch, and grabs Gavin’s arm so he can haul the Brit with him out the door. Geoff and Jack and Ryan can fend for themselves, especially if Geoff’s choosing to be a provoking asshole. Ray’s not getting shot for Geoff’s bossman ego. Screw that.

They’re barely outside before Geoff shoves him off the porch. Ray nearly cracks his skull open on the sprinkler attachment of the hose. Not to mention what hard impact with the lawn does to the bruises on his back. Ray scrambles to his feet and shouts. “What the hell!” 

“This is all your fucking fault, asshole.”

“Fuck you, man,” Ray mutters. He didn’t do shit that Michael didn’t consent to at the start. Not his fucking fault Michael went insane afterwards. 

“Can you two stop dicking around so we can just go back to the goddamn hotel?” Ryan growls.

“Does it look like I’m horsing the fuck around?” Geoff barks. Ray would normally recommend against picking a fight with Ryan, but fuck Geoff for calling this unhappy ending his fucking fault. Geoff can eat a dick. Geoff can get a little bit stabbed by Ryan. Ray’s not suggesting shit.

“Fine. Whatever.” Jack snaps. “You stay on his lawn being assholes, the three of us are heading back.”

“Oh yeah?” Ray doesn’t actually oppose anything, and isn’t quite sure how Jack wrongly picked that up. He just doesn’t see why that’s the next step. What the fuck are they going to do in the hotel that’ll make everything better? Maybe Geoff being a shovey asshole shook something loose in his head because Ray no longer thinks fleeing is their best option. They could just stay here, in the front yard. Insist on Michael coming out to talk about the stupid assumptions he’s made. They just have to get the gun away from him, then he’ll have to talk. Or even if no one else feels like going against Michael’s wrath, there are still better things to do. They can at least be Gavin’s corollary; track down and torture any pedos in the area. Ray’s never been a vigilante before, but Callie deserves a safe childhood.

“Get in the van you utter pillock!” Gavin shouts from about half the distance to the vehicle that Ray is. 

Ray gives one last look at Michael’s house before heading for the van. It’s possible the consensus might be that they’re wasting time, that they should go home, maybe visit at Christmas with a few grand worth of presents. At least if that happens he’ll have fucked Michael. It’s a better goodbye than most.

Unlike yesterday, they don’t immediately disperse once in the hotel room. Gavin throws himself onto the left bed at the headboard. Ray claims headboard too, but he draws himself up, thighs against his chest and arm around his knees. Geoff grabs a bleached wood chair beside Gavin. Jack sits on the edge of the bed, half twisted with her left leg sideways so she can face everyone except Geoff. And Ryan’s sitting with spread knees on the bed he and Ray slept on last night, hands braced against the mattress.

No one mentions that if Michael was here he’d be at the headboard and Gavin would be starfished on the middle of the bed. No one says anything at all. 

Ray’s just as mute as the rest of them. He’s got nothing to announce. The only thing he wants to do is put his hoodie on, pull his hood down over his face, and declare the day over. The despair and the stupid manly grit patchworked over despair is so much thicker here than it was in the car. It fucking clogs the air like plums of powdered concrete after an explosion. He’s not sure he can stand a full evening of this. He knows he can’t stand the idea of exiting the room, not even to snipe or gamble or get in a fight. Thanks to circumstances Ray’s gotten to experience both traumatic, blisteringly negative togetherness and the silence of separation. He knows which one he’d rather.

“Look,” Jack says eventually, breaking the depressed hush. “Before we all fuck off and do a repeat of what we uselessly did last night can I just ask something? Does anyone else not want to leave?”

“We have to leave. Our empire is waiting,” Geoff says flatly.

Ray’s not sure how he still considers it the FAHC empire when they’ve all gone their different ways. Maybe Geoff’s holding up more of a house of cards than Ray realised, running on a skeleton crew. Maybe the times DGG attempted to hire him were more than just an olive branch. No one else seems surprised. Ray could blame it on Jack and Gavin having different kinds of faith than he has, but it still doesn’t account for Ryan.

“That’s fine though,” Gavin starts. “They’ll just come with.”

Where the fuck was Gavin this morning, when his boi shot that concept the fuck down? Stupidass. “I don’t think Michael’s willing-”

“Yeah, but if we kidnap his daughter he’ll have to.”

 

“That’s the stupidest idea you’ve ever had. Ever,” Geoff states.

“What, because I’m less willing to lose her?”

Jack shakes her head, exasperated. “Because Michael will literally murder you.”

“Well, it’d prove we want her too, at least.”

Ray could shoot Gavin for how moronic that is. Lucky for the Brit his guns are in Geoff’s duffel, in the otherwise empty wardrobe, and he isn’t quite committed enough to get off the bed to retrieve one.

“Fuck leaving or staying for a minute. Before that matters we have to decide something else. Wanting Michael back- is this a crew thing or a boyfriend thing?”

It figures that that’s the way Ryan sees it. With his non-stop split between Ryan and Vagabond, that would be the first question on his mind. But the rest of them aren’t built that way. Ray’s not built that way, and he wants to blur the line between gang and group marriage as much as possible. And Geoff’s obviously not built that way either, because he’s the one that protests Ryan’s artificial divide.

“Why the fuck can’t it be both?”

“It was before,” Ray chimes in. Because _seriously_. Why the fuck can’t he get promised the best blowjob of his life if he lines the shot well enough to kill two people with one bullet? Those were good times, and he wants to live them again.

“We fucked it up before.”

“Michael not using a jonny fucked it up before,” Gavin replies bitchily.

“You fucking hypocrite. I bet you didn’t use them on half the people you were with the last five months.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have working tubes now do I?”

Geoff reaches out and punches Gavin in one of his visible bruises. “If you gave me crabs I will break all your toes. Just so you know.”

“Can we fucking focus for a second?”

Jack’s on Ryan’s side, her next statement is firmly on topic. “Look. We obviously can’t do anything to Callie. But we can convince him that our crew, despite our enemies, is still safer than his new crew.”

Gavin scowls. “Don’t say new crew. They aren’t.”

“He thinks they are,” Geoff replies. At different times his enjoyment of being devil’s advocate has been Ray’s most and least favourite trait. Right now it sucks. Screw Michael’s new crew all the way to hell.

“They’re not!”

“So how do we do that?” Ray questions.

“The obvious play is to murder them.”

“Too obvious. Michael will know what happened if Ray snipes them.”

Ray really doesn’t mind sniping them. He’s wanted to for a week now. Since that first moment of seeing Michael’s jacket intermingled with a bunch of denim jackets, in a store in a city he doesn’t belong to. Ray’s about to suggest that he snipe them in ways that lead to larger accidents that destroy proof, like car crash sniping, when something else occurs to him. Something straight up glorious. “I have an idea, but it’s dirty. Is anyone opposed?”

“Does it get Michael back to Los Santos?”

“It could?” Nothing’s a certainty, but it has better odds than the stalemate they’re in now.

Geoff straightens in his chair. Jack pulls up her other leg so she can sit cross legged and face them all. Gavin bolts off the bed to get his laptop, and a notepad for Jack. They are Fake AH, and they are ready.

***

Ray’s waiting for the call. The plan takes into account that Michael could call him, Jack, or Geoff; a few of the tasks are transferrable. Ray’s not sure the smart money’s on him, but he sits in his rented -actually rented, not stolen- pick up and waits. His secondary task, should he not be the one Michael taps, isn’t for a while.

His cell rings and he digs it out of back his pocket, where he purposefully left it so he couldn’t answer instantly and be suspicious. “Hello?”

“Ray. Good. Look. Some shit went down and I need you to pick up the pirate package- Fuck you pigs!” Ray hears an oof and then a dial tone. Obviously the cop monitoring Michael’s one phone call didn’t appreciate the code talk, and threw the sneaky prisoner into the wall face first. That’s fine. Ryan’s task doesn’t require Michael to be pretty and unbruised.

 **It’s me** he sends to the four of them, then stomps on the gas to go get Callie. 

Harrow Day Center is a great looking place. The high chainlink to prevent the kids from wandering into the street has crepe paper woven through, currently rustling in the light breeze. The yard itself is full of tires and two different play structures. The ground isn’t grass or concrete or sand, it’s some weird kind of hunks of petrified wood, nothing Ray’s seen before. But it’s spotted with colour; there’s buried toys, dropped bottles of bubble solution, scribbled on gallon milk jugs, so it can’t be called too unappealing. 

Ray flicks the latch on the gate and lets himself in. This will either go the easy way or the hard way. Ray’s prepared for both.

Thankfully it’s not as difficult as all that. When he walks in there are at least a dozen kids scattered around the large room. Some are playing on the floor, on a massive big black rug with a solar system design. Others are at miniature tables so short Ray’s pretty sure he’d be eating his own kneecaps if he tried to sit in one of the miniscule chairs. One of the staff disconnects from where she’s subtly helping two kids with a puzzle by moving the pieces they need closer to their hands and comes to greet him.

“Interviewing parent?”

“Here to pick up Callie Parr, actually.” He only knows her last name because of Gavin skimming through Harrow Day Center’s picture laden website and getting further into parent and employee records after that. According to the paperwork her father is Davis Parr.

“Davis didn’t say someone else would be picking her up,” the worker says warily. “Especially not so early.”

“There’s a bit of an emergency with her biological mother. Davis had to go, but he’s trying to avoid exposing Callie to her, she’s pretty toxic.” There. A good feelings word. That should subconsciously warm up a staff member at an emotions centered daycare. Who says Ray’s not good at this undercover shit?

“That’s good of him. Callie has expressed some troubles. It’s important he think of her needs first. But I’m going to need a name.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Callie’s emergency contacts are recorded. If you don’t have ID we’ll have to call to confirm.”

That is not an option for obvious reasons. And Gavin didn’t say anything about emergency goddamn protocol when he was browsing last night. Ray has five different IDs in his wallet and enough magicians palmistry to pull out any of them without looking like he’s flicking through his options. The question is which fucking one would Michael have said? Thankfully Ray’s memory kicks in before his inaction stretches suspiciously long. Parr means nothing, but they once held up Davis Bank, and to get onto the roof with the best angles Ray’d had to pose as a freakin’ ornithologist. That fake ID was Jamie Clark. 

Mentally crossing his fingers that past Michael was on the same wavelength as he is now, Ray pulls out his Jamie Clark driver’s license and gives it to the woman. She glances at it, glances at him, and hands it back. “Great. One sec.”

She moves to the side of the room, open a heavy metal fire door and positions herself as doorstop. Outwards facing, like she’s still monitoring the puzzle boys, though her head is turned towards the other room. Ray doesn’t read lips very well. He especially doesn’t read lips well without a scope in front of his eyes bringing the speaker’s mouth into focus. But there’s only so much she could be saying to the person or people in the other room, so Ray’s not concerned.

And then Callie is darting out of the door that the employee is now holding wider open, poof of hair barely contained by a construction paper crown, and the only part of Ray that’s paying attention to anything else is the part that’s ready to take out anything that threatens his own. She’s in that catagory, now. 

“Uncle Ray!”

Okay, yeah. Geoff’s right. Fuck Michael. That’s too good of a title to lose. It’s also breaking cover. Ray tenses but the woman watching them doesn’t react. Probably kids say weird shit all the time and she’s used to trusting government documents.

“Do you have sh- stuff? Like, that you’re supposed to bring home when you leave?” Ray’s got no idea if he’s using the right authoritative words for her -this is different than pretending to be a pirate- but he at least knows not to call a collection of items shit. Wouldn’t do to miss dessert, after all.

Callie grabs his hand and pulls him over to the bank of open faced lockers. No wonder Ryan put up with fuckin’ time out. Under this grasp Ray would too.

“Daddy said you wouldn’t be back for dinner. Not any of his friends.”

It’s probably bad to contradict the parent, right? Ray doesn’t know how this shit works, but presumably. “Yeah. That’s why we’re hanging out now.”

Ray lets her take her lunch kit and picks up the day’s artwork. He’ll put it in the back seat, make sure it doesn’t get fucked up. Shit, maybe he’ll get one of the vaguely animal shaped designs airbrushed on a car or a rifle. Show how much he cares. Not that Callie will ever fuckin’ see his rifle. Bad enough smaller weapons might come into play.

Ray doesn’t take Callie home. If the police don’t know enough about Michael’s identity to know he has a kid they shouldn’t know his address either. It’s a gamble, but one Ray’d probably feel pretty comfortable taking, if that was the only variable. But of course it’s not. There’s Michael’s grade F crew to think about. Despite being pathetic enough to have not noticed a tail when Ray was investigating, they’ve had six months with Michael, minus however long it took MLP to give up the straight life. It’s possible they have more personal info than Michael thinks they do, and just never saw fit to use it. There’s more than one way to clean house, and Ray’s not exposing Callie to bomb or gas leak or drive by or deranged homeless killer. 

Instead he takes her to McDonalds. It’s good for her; it’s lunch, and a toy, and crazy adventures such as a ballpit and a slide and whatever the fuck those metal fixtures with the slidey balls are called. It’s good for him; multiple exits, hard furniture to duck behind, enough casualties to get the cops moving quickly, and enough citizens that someone besides him might have a gun and be annoyed enough to return fire. McDonalds is the best choice available to them both.

It’s two hours from Michael’s call to Gavin’s text. In all that time Callie doesn’t complain once of boredom while stuck in Playland. It’s awesome. It’s actually kind of inspiring. Ray’s been on jobs where he can’t leave a room for hours and there’s no question that he’s better than anyone else in the crew at staying put, but he doesn’t get half as much sheer fun out of the restriction as he’s witnessing either. Callie’s not just accepting her fate, she’s reveling in it. More points to Michael’s pick of daycare, too. Callie’s able to start play-like scenes to act out with other stranger kids before their parents haul them away. She does it like three times.

Ray takes Callie to the instructed location. It’s a sienna trimmed house in the middle of suburbia, parked cars lightly scattered against the right side of the street. He doesn’t see anything that has Gavin or Geoff’s normal flare, but it’s possible they’ve also broken into the garage to make their use of the house truly inconspicuous. Everyone is already inside, unsurprisingly. It was part of the plan, to fully secure the location before bringing Callie into it. How could they do anything else?

Father and daughter hug for a long moment. Callie breaks it before Michael does. To her it’s just been a standard day, apart from being picked up by a friend of the family. No reason to cling. But they all get what Michael’s been through, the shittiness and depression that comes with a failed plan and arrest, and they haven’t experienced the kicker of it happening with an unprovided for dependant waiting. No wonder Michael’s arms twitch like he wants to grab her back once Callie happily wriggles out of his grip.

Michael stays squatted, and tries to refocus her attention from surveying her new surroundings. “Callz, you remember what privacy is?”

“Like a purse-null space bubble. But with your ears and eyes too.” Callie proves her point by clapping her hands over her ears, then eyes.

“You are so right,” Michael confirms, and she fucking beams. Shit, if Ray could bottle that feeling and sell it he’d start a new FAHC enterprise. It’d destroy every other substance dealt, like how DVDs destroyed the VHS industry. Except for how he probably wouldn’t, because her delight is about a million times too good for the basic junkie asshole to deserve. Michael continues, “Daddy and his friends need some privacy.”

“Say please!” She shouts, the good-mannered little shit. That’s something that all of them are going to struggle with in the future.

“Please. I will be very sad if you listen.”

“No!” Callie slaps her hands on Michael’s cheekbones where tears would be if he was sad. 

Jack come forward, iPad in hand. “I have Netflix. So you get to pick a show that your dad says is okay and then you’ll put on my big girl headphones and watch. You won’t even care about what your daddy’s talking about.”

“Yancy Fancy!” Callie shouts. Ray has to assume that’s a kid’s tv show.

Once she’s set up they all sit at the table within sight of Callie. Ray’s pleased this homeowner has so many chairs. Happy circumstance. It’s not like Geoff or Ryan would be the ones to sit on the floor if there were only enough or half of them, that would be his or Gavin’s problem.

Michael crosses his arms and opens his mouth. “Look. I’m not fucking stupid. I know you sicced the cops on us. But your point was made. Stefon didn’t try to get the rest of us out of the warehouse, it was every man for himself. They didn’t try to break us out of jail either. There were no contingencies for my daughter and I don’t know who I would have called and the cops are too clean to bribe.”

“You would have rung us,” Gavin states. “Way after six months of believing you dead or a traitor one of us would have stolen a jet to save you or your loved ones.”

Ray’s not sure how true that actually is. After all, they did come to Las Vegas with the intention of murdering Michael, slowly. But he doesn’t comment, because that doesn’t help their group argument of MLP leaving this bullshit place and coming back to where he belongs. Any one of the four of them would probably shove a flare up Ray’s ass if he ruined this last attempt at getting their boyfriend and colleague back by saying something stupid, and Ray’d really rather avoid that.

“So, yeah. I’m ready to come home. But there are still things we need to figure out.”

“We’ll restructure.” Ryan says firmly.

“Do five person jobs, or throw in secondaries so there’s always someone left.” Jack tacks on. Ray has no doubt she and Geoff already have a dozen ideas for how to build new heists with only a few members of the core six amongst the chaff. No one can snipe quite as well as he can, but a few passable snipers set in different locations might add up to one single spectacular sniper. Gavin’s skills can be utilized from miles away. Michael can hand off his explosives to someone and direct him or her on when to use them through an earpiece.

“We’ll fund a daycare in the high rise and staff it with our own,” Geoff says.

“Caiti would slaughter to protect any child, not just ours,” Jack says. It’s a flat statement. Everyone knows it to be true. That thin wisp of a woman brings fiery hell down upon anyone that even blinks at a child the wrong way. Ray never really understood the compulsion until now. Not that he didn’t like children before. He was just neutral, as anyone uninvested would be. But he gets it now, is so fucking invested now. Callie deserves a legion of adults making sure her life is happy and healthy, but six will have to do.

Ray waits for Michael to ruin the moment by asking if they really consider Callie theirs, but he doesn’t. Michael must already know. Good goddamn thing. Ray’d hate to be dating a blind idiot.

“So we’re doing this, then? You two are comin’ home with us?”

Michael smirks, a little, and shrugs. “What the fuck other choice is there?”

Ray loves these guys. He’s never stopped, despite how the abiding feeling has really fucked him these last six months. Bringing them all back to his condo sounds like the best thing in the world. He doesn’t know what childproofing entails, has only heard of it, but he’s sure he can get it done. Or at least outsource it to a company Gavin vetts as worthy. And once everyone is settled they can get into what remnants of FAHC Geoff has kept alive and make it all flourish with blood and drugs and passion again.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe this happened. All I wanted, in the beginning was a fic with Gavin competently entertaining a child. But since there's the M***ie rule in this fandom, I had to develop a way for Gavin to get to a child that was nothing like canon. Twenty six k and two months later... *headdesk*
> 
> ETA: as of Sept 2 there is a notfic in this verse on my tumblr [here.](http://gala0apples.tumblr.com/post/128220298657/about-my-fic-a-shift-in-priority)


End file.
